Burnham Chairs Emergency COBRA Meeting On Droughts

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, can Bernham's belated Cobra meeting find any substantive solutions to England's desperate drought? We talked to the author of a report on the economic costs of this sweltering summer. And the Democratic Socialists in America suffer their first big setback in a while. I'm Aaron Bastani and tonight I should be joined by Michael Walker. This should have been a live show, but because of technical issues that wasn't to be. Uh if you want to help future proof of our media and make sure that these kinds of technical issues don't become more pervasive that as we get bigger and better they all but disappear, you can of course go to navardia.com/sport, help us build a new media for different politics. We're trying to mix it up with the big boys. Uh we don't always succeed. We're trying our best uh with a little help from our friends, namely you. The link for that is in the description below. help us build a new media for a different politics. On a separate but somewhat related point, you can listen to this show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and of course, like this video, subscribe to the channel. And don't forget to let us know what you think in the comments below. Last Wednesday, Zach Palansky called an impromptu press conference to demand Andy Burnham chair an emergency Cobra meeting on the droughts. This afternoon, it happened. Zach Palansky welcomed that news. Good. Now, we need action. tax fossil fuel giants to pay for firefighting helicopters, a cool space in every community, a maximum working temperature, and no new oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. We cannot negotiate with the science. At COBRA meetings are called to deal with national emergencies, and they bring together the prime minister, senior civil servants, and ministers and officials from relevant departments. All the people who should be on top of the details. Uh we're yet to get confirmation as to what was discussed or decided, but reports this morning suggested Bernham's plans are unlikely to meet the ambition demanded by the Greens. Bernham told journalists this morning that one thing he would be considering is a ban on disposable barbecues. To be clear, this isn't a bad idea. This is from the Guardian. In July this year, firefighters called Tanic Chase uh found an area the size of a football field blazing in the summer heat. The Heathland and Sherbrook Valley, part of a special area of conservation, was home to adders, toads, and other wildlife, which were thought to have suffered severe damage, though no people were harmed. The cause of the fire, was identified as a disposable barbecue. Uh, disposable barbecues, which can be carried into public areas, present a number of problems. They remain hot, sometimes for hours after they're used, making them extremely difficult to dispose of safely. And when they cannot be carried away, people are forced to leave them or place them into bins where they carry on smoldering. Burying the barbecues, as some try to do, will not stop the danger. As these trays of charcoal can reach 450° sea and will carry on burning underground, where they can still ignite fires long after use on beaches. The buried coals and metal grills are also a hazard for walkers and in fields for farm animals. On a personal note, I think this is a really sensible first step. Is a ban on disposable barbecues going to help solve the climate crisis, solve the drought? Is it going to help us um have more sustainable infrastructure and food production? Of course, it's not. But it's very easy. You know, sometimes it's okay to start with the really easy stuff. And the fact that in British politics, we don't address the easy stuff time after time after time, I think speaks for itself. You know on the high street the classic example for me I keep on talking about this is the bins where you put clothes for charities right and of course they get full up and then people just fly tip everything everything not just clothes but rubbish mattresses chairs so these basically become signs signals even to say fly tip here or telephone boxes with no phones in them they've not been in there for 20 years what happens in them people like to urinate in them people often sell drugs from them. These these are very easy things to eliminate. Are they going to remake Britain? Not really. Most people don't even notice this stuff. It's just weirdos like me. But it costs next to nothing. Um, and when you think of, for instance, the the charity shop bins, who's actually having to clean that stuff up? It's local authorities. It's the councils. So the council taxpayer is subsidizing charities to have these awful bins, which by the way, I've spoken to people in that sector. They barely use any of the clothes. It's more about having their brand on a high street, basically advertising their good work and obviously to get more money, which they're entitled to do, but it's not good policy. So, I think this is a sensible move. I don't think it's sufficient. I don't think anybody thinks it's sufficient, but it's a sensible move. And you know what? You can get a really good um mobile barbecue that you can use again and again and again on Amazon. I don't like using Amazon, but you can get on Amazon for 30 quid if you want to spend a bit more money. I think it's a Smokeoky Joe with Weber. It's about 80 quid and you can take that where you like and it's a great barbecue. By the way, these disposable barbecues barely cook food. It's awful. My dad, who's Iranian, who's Turkish Iranian, will say, "Don't trust an Englishman with a barbecue." Which is ridiculous. Of course, one of my best friends, one of my good friends, uh is fabulous with barbecues. He's an Englishman. Uh but his his line of thinking with this is who else uses disposable barbecues? These people aren't serious about cooking their meat outdoors, which you know there's something to that, right? So from a climate perspective in terms of fires, no good. Uh obviously from a sustainability perspective, these are one-off use. They should be banned anyway, let's be honest. So this is good. This is Andy Burnham. What he's very able at doing big issue. He'll zone in on a a tiny detail which people understand and he'll get lots of consensus behind it and he'll do something about it. Good for him. It's a start. The Greens could, I hope, push beyond it, though. Uh it would make sense to invest a lot in climate adaptation over the next few months because next year is set to be even warmer than 2026. Zeie Housefather is a climate scientist at Berkeley. He's plotted this chart predicting 2027 uh and it will be considerably hotter than this year. He's captioned it, quote, I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures on the back of a record smashing El Nino event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850. Uh, that's worrying. Unfortunately for us, global average temperature rises have been hitting Europe harder than anywhere else. Europe is now 2.5° C hotter than before. before the mass burning of fossil fuels um almost double the global average of 1.4 degrees. So it's 1.4 degrees basically since the mid-9th century in Europe it's it's more so when people talk about 1.5 or two or as it presently is 1.4 four. That is of course a global average and some places it's cooler. Some places it's warmer. We don't talk about it enough. The sea is very good at absorbing the heat. So over sea 70% of the earth's um surface area it's cooler. Over land mass it's warmer. Temperatures in Europe for instance have risen by 0.56 degrees a decade since the mid1 1990s. That compares with 0.42 in North America, 0.36 in Africa and 0.27 degrees centigrade in South America. On the one hand, maybe that's a good thing. We kicked off the industrial revolution and we're relatively rich. It's better. We have faster warming in Europe than say subsahara and Africa where it will be much harder to adapt. But the reason Europe is warming up faster than elsewhere also brings many causes for concern. This heat map from the Capernacus Institute shows how much different parts of the world are heating up. Obviously, you can only see half the world here, but it's enough to show you that the fastest warming region on Earth is the Arctic, which is heating up at around 1.5° C a decade. Eastern Europe is also badly affected. And you can also see the worrying cold blob, which could indicate the AMO might be slowing down. That's to do with the jetream over the North Atlantic. Uh it's a system of ocean currents, which brings warmer water up to the North Atlantic from the tropics. The Arctic being hotter than anywhere else is not good as it can bring about tipping points with less ice. Less sunlight is of course reflected back onto the atmosphere and the melting of perafrost is also a big concern. I mean, let's keep this image up for a minute. You can see that Siberia and of course the Arctic as I just said get really hot. You can't see it here, but of course it's the same story in the north part of the Western Hemisphere. famously, I think in 2022, British Columbia, British Columbia, Vancouver, folks, saw 49° centigrade. I think that was one of the data points where I said to myself, what on earth is happening? Um, but it being the hottest over the Arctic is so important for a bunch of reasons. For instance, if the Greenland uh ice sheet disappears, you can see Greenland right at the top there. That's not doing as badly as the bit of the Arctic over northern Russia. But if the Greenland ice sheet disappears, I think sea levels rise by a good four or five meters. Pretty sharpish. When I say sharpish, not in 10 years, but you know, pretty sharpish. It happens pretty quickly. Uh and that is I think that the deal breaker really uh between whether or not we get the jetream sticking around or not. So basically, if the green sheet melts, Britain, it's plausible. uh it gets a lot warmer for 50 60 years and then it gets much much colder because of course uh people don't realize this but somewhere like Rome is on the same latitude as New York. The reason why Europe is so much warmer than North America is because of the jetream. So it's not just about temperatures here. It's also about the jetream. It's also of course about sea levels. If all of that ice melts then sea levels will be significantly higher than they are today. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but this story over the last couple of weeks just brings the climate systems breakdown story to, you know, so close to home. I mean, I live in the I live in Hampshire. I live in on the South Coast. I'm I'm from Dorset. I now live in Hampshire. Right between those two places, of course, the New Forest. and seeing new forest ponies uh running through ash, you know, smoke literally coming up from the floor. Um hearing about uh birds that will, you know, nest on the ground. They'll reproduce on the ground like night jars for instance. Many of those will have obviously been killed in the last few days. This is really really bad and it's just starting. It is just starting. And I think some people on the left often we get accused of being alarmists and sometimes I think that's true. Sometimes the left goes a bit overboard, right? I don't agree with people when they say, "I don't want to have kids because of climate change." What kind of a world are we bringing children into? Well, you know, people brought children into a world much worse than this one 5,000 years ago. If they didn't, you wouldn't be here. Uh so I think sometimes the alarmism can go over the top or or at least be irrational, not internally coherent. But this is really really bad. This is really really bad. We have, I think, now um in terms of part parts per million with CO2, we have about 430 parts per million in the in the air. I think it was about 270 in the 1850s. And uh if we carry on like this, I think by the 2070s, we get to the mid500s. We get to the mid500s. I read somewhere, I think it was Bill Maguire, if we burn all of the fossil fuels available to us, coal, gas, oil, maybe Pete as well, I guess. And obviously that's not going to happen. If we burnt all of the fossil fuels available to us as a species, I think planetary warming would be something like 15 degrees warmer than today. Obviously we're wiped out. We're probably wiped out at five or six, right? Um and that's not me saying this as a climatologist because I'm not. It's somebody who just reads these people. Um Bill McGuire is a volcanologist at UCL. So if we burnt all of these resources, the planet's probably 15 16 degrees warmer than I think either today or the mid- 19th century. And I presume that people who have no issue with climate change, people, you know, like who vote reform and or whoever they vote for. But of course, these people have a higher propensity to vote for certain parties or or vote for the the Tories or whatever. If they think this is no issue at all and we just keep on burning fossil fuels, what you just accept that actually 15 degrees warming isn't a problem. Nobody thinks that, right? They're saying, "Well, no, we should reduce CO2 emissions." That's what. And then you go, okay, well, okay, we've found a middle ground here, haven't we? So, we should reduce them. How quickly? Well, not as quickly as you're saying. Okay, well, you're reacting to a political position I have. What's What's your solution? And that's where we've got to get to. I do, however, think, and I'll finish with this, this summer has woken up so many climate skeptics in Britain. So many. I think even if they thought it was real, the scenes that we're seeing across England where more than twothirds of of this nation is in drought, I think they thought that was 30, 40, 50 years away. No, it's coming. And as Kevin Anderson said to me on downstream last week, in terms of, you know, the averages, this is as good as it gets now for the rest of your life. It's only going to get worse because of CO2 and methane and water vapor that's already been um ejected into the atmosphere. The point is now, what can we mitigate going forward? Reform and the Tories like to complain that the transition to net zero is too expensive. But in case you hadn't noticed, climate change turns out to be pretty expensive, too. It takes a lot of money to put out forest fires and even more if they burn down houses. Installing air conditioning for the summers and flood defenses for the autumn and winter also doesn't come cheap. And one think tank has attempted to put a figure on the cost of the UK's summer of extraordinary heat waves and droughts. The think tank is called Verdant and they have projected that the heat this summer may have cost over4 billion pounds in lost output. That figure is based on the assumption that very hot weather lowers labor productivity which of course seems plausible I'd imagine to most people. For a more detailed sense of where this estimate came from, my colleague Michael Walker spoke to the report's author um earlier on today. That is of course friend of the show James Midway. >> So the 4.4 4 billion pounds is an estimate for the loss in output, how much the economy produces over the three summer heat waves. And you get there by saying, okay, what's the um temperature that was reached in all the different local authorities across the entire country? This is MET office data to get you that. And then what we did was look at some research from Alliance, the insurers, which said that basically every degree over 30 degrees you have in an area, it's about 3% of uh the amount you can produce in any working hour in that area. So you take those two things, put them together, and that gives you the estimate for the total loss from the heat waves over the summer. It's based as I say on originally on research by Alliance who are one of the world's biggest insurance companies uh Met Office data to get you temperatures then our calculations to get you the final figure >> and as far as I understand it and also just you know I think everyone knows this anecdotally um hot temperatures make you less productive they make you sort of slower at thinking in general um obviously though presumably one thing that really matters is whether your workplace has air conditioning does that make a big difference here >> it does make a difference I mean you're absolutely right there sort of two different channels for effects. One of them is is especially if you're doing outdoor work, if you're working on a construction site or you're picking fruit, the effect is very immediate and physical. Um the second one is more subtle is if you're in an office, it gets hot. It's just harder to think. You as you say, it's not just anecdotally, we actually have good sort of scientific evidence around this. The particular bit that starts to matter, especially in London over June, uh London, other built-up areas, is that you have these tropical nights, nights over 20 degrees when okay, you're in an air conditioned office, but then you come home, it's baking hot, you can't sleep, you don't sleep properly, you go in the next day, it's air conditioned, but you have not had good sleep, you can't work as well. And that's the kind of cumulative impact uh that builds up over time during these heat waves you see even in office environments. >> And and will we see this in the GDP statistics? Obviously, you've made this prediction based on these assumptions. It will it be the case that sort of at the end of August, we'll be able to see if actually the economy did sort of lose that much amount of or that value of production. >> Well, be it'll be it'll be mixed in with everything else that GDP records, but it should be a bit lower than you might anticipate. That's basically what this estimate is telling us. It would have been 4.4 billion bigger and now it's going to be a little bit smaller than that. So with everything else going on, it will sort of maybe get mixed in with the impacts of the Iran war and all sorts of other things. But nonetheless, that's real and it's happening and we think obviously this is effect is going to get worse in Britain across Europe uh over the coming years as climate change worsens. >> So you're very open about it in the report that you're just looking at labor productivity. There obviously other costs of heat waves and we're seeing images of forest fires presumably takes a lot of money to to put those out and then they cause some damage as well that presumably lasts a while. I know farmers are struggling with yields and because uh it's so dry. Um so could we imagine the cost actually being even higher than what you've suggested? >> Yes, you'd have thought so that I mean wildfires is an obvious one where it's just expensive uh to have to put these things out. That's a cost that most likely falls on government. I mean by the way one consequence of what we're saying is that the government deficit will be slightly bigger because you get less in taxes uh than you might have expected. Um, there's the potential costs of, you know, you turn the air conditioning on or the fan or whatever, your electricity bill goes up. So, that's a cost to businesses and to households. So, all of these things start to stack up on top of what we're seeing. And then, of course, there's the longer term impact. A particularly severe wildfire might knock things out for a long period of time. Final bit is of course farming, which, you know, the reports are already pretty alarming about how badly impacted harvests have been over this year. We'll probably start see that coming through in the autumn in significant increases in the price of food. both from Britain and of course everything we have to buy from the rest of the world. >> And it's it's 20 years now since the Stern report was written. That was written in 20 2006 um by a sort of very distinguished economist um asked for by the Labor government at the time. And his big argument which was seen as quite groundbreaking at the time was to say that yes it's expensive to deal with climate change but if we fail to mitigate climate change the costs of its consequences will be much higher um considerably higher. um your argument that you're making today is you know along a similar line. I wonder if you can sort of look back over those two decades. Do you think that message has sort of sunk in to to global leaders? >> I mean in practice yes there's been a fair amount of progress being made in decarbonizing energy systems in particular. This country the UK has a significantly decarbonized energy system compared to what it had in 2006. you know that there's no coal production of any sort taking place now in terms of our energy mix. So that's something that's actually happened. If you look at the progress that China's been making and the exports of all this renewable technology now incredibly cheap uh solar panels, battery technology to the rest of the world. So there's progress that's been made um relative to the sort of scenarios that Stern was talking about back then. The problem is it's just not enough. So we've made this progress, but you're still getting hit by climate change. were still getting hit by the impacts of all that car um dioxide in particular that's been burnt over you know two centuries of industrialization. So we've made progress it's just not enough and that's why we're seeing these sort of real economic costs in addition to everything else that you're getting with these heat waves >> and and these kind of projections that you're doing are they also being done in the treasury? Obviously, we hear all the time about Treasury brain. You know, they they can't look at the long term and they're always saying, "Oh, we shouldn't spend this, we shouldn't spend that." And they're not looking at how investments now could save us money in the future. Are there people in the Treasury doing these kind of sums or is this something which is alien to them? >> Well, it's it's the Office of Budget Responsibility that's that's taken a bit of a lead in doing this and they have given projections for what will happen to the British economy if climate change just continues unchecked uh into the future. And it's all pretty alarming. you know, this is very very significant increases in government debt, which of course the thing they really fixate on, huge increases in the deficit, big impact and growth. It's all there. I I would say that from our point of view, a lot of this stuff is sitting there in those OBR reports as quite distant things that happen by 2050, 2070 when we need to think about some of the really sort of not unexpected but jarring impacts that we get already like heat waves. So the average temperature increases a bit, but then you have these big spikes in temperature during the summer months. And this is where the real costs are starting to appear is when not just the average increase. The sort of day-to-day typical things increase, you also have these big dramatic events like the heat waves we've had over this summer. That's where some of the real sort of immediate costs start to appear. But there is clearly some thinking like this taking place in government for sure. >> That was my colleague Michael Walker speaking to the co-founder of the Verdant Think Tank earlier today, James Medway. Before we move on to our next story, I have personal experience with this. Right now, we're having a loft conversion. Uh not because we're posh, but because we can't afford to move. We're on a terrace house and we're having a second child. Ideally, they'd have a bedroom, right? So, we're converting the loft and um we we know the guys involved in it um part partly through family. So, we have a a decent um rapport and uh the windows haven't turned up. The windows have been weeks and the staircase didn't turn up for weeks. Both were delayed. And it turns out that both the factories of the the windows and the staircase were in the UK and they shut down because of extreme heat right at the start of the summer. I don't know if you remember we started to do shows remotely, right? Because it was getting to 35 36. Those factories also shut down I think for a week which makes sense doesn't it? You know you presumably they don't have air conditioning. presumably they can't really do much beyond 30 31 even though it's a stretch but you get all the fans blazing you can just about do it but at 35 36 you've got heavy machinery it gets hot it's obviously much hotter inside than it is outside it's just not manageable is it so just just me anecdotally I know of two businesses who had to do shutdowns because of the heat and there are so many stories like this which we're not talking about I saw an amazing one in Japan um Japanese work culture is being revolutionized is by uh the oil crisis of course ongoing with Iran but also with the heat as well. So Japan this time of year, tons of air conditioning and it means that the Japanese salary man can wear his suit to work and they've broken with protocol. This year they're going into work with t-shirts and shorts and that has stunned and stupified, you know, the the saratoral conservatives in in Japanese uh discourse. They are very upset. Uh and that is a direct outgrowth of geopolitics and climate change. Uh so this is happening. If you want to deny it, go ahead. But these are very real manifestations of the stuff that we talk about all the time, geopolitics, but in this instance, more so climate change. It's happening and the repercussions are absolutely everywhere, not least the UK economy. Last Tuesday was a big moment for the American left. That was with Abdul Al, of course, winning the Michigan Senate primary for the Democrats, proving that the left can win nominations in purple states and they can take on and defeat the money of the Israel lobby. and polls had suggested the Democratic Socialist of America would due another win this week in Wisconsin. Their member, Franchesca Hong, had been the front runner in a primary for the governorhip of the state. Polls had shown her 20 points ahead of her nearest rival. But by Wednesday morning, it was clear she'd lost, even if by the narrowest of margins. With almost all votes counted, the establishmentbacked Democrat David Crowley has 39.78% of the vote. Hong has 39.37% of the vote. Hong, who is a chef and restaurant owner, was dogged by negative stories about past tweets calling for the abolition of the police and even cancelling Thanksgiving, uh, which she of course struggled to rebut or even explain. This was one viral clip during the campaign. >> You know, you've talked about your past positions that he keeps highlighting and, you know, obviously likely would continue to do so before November should you win. One thing that they brought up as well was a post from you in 2021 um where you said Americans should cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. Uh the post has been deleted. Republicans have been highlighting it. Do you still believe that uh Thanksgiving should be cancelled? I'm a chef and one of the first meals that I made uh that was um for the community uh when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal. You know, I always think my hospitality background and owning a restaurant for seven, eight years that bringing folks around the table uh to share conversation and build community is always a good thing. But Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so I think there I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but you know, views can evolve and the position that I'm running for right now and I think my background as a chef will actually help me become a better governor that's able to bring more people to the table. >> I don't think anything she said there was actually unreasonable. I don't agree with all of it, but it's not unreasonable. These are these are coherent points. Uh, but it's not great populist politics, which is perhaps why Bernie Sanders and AOC withheld any endorsement of Hong, which is a shame. It's a shame. You said one thing in winter of 2020. We were kind of all going a bit crazy. Uh, and you know, you you you don't win, which is a shame. She probably would have been a very good public representative. But the closeness of the race means there has been some backlash at the decision of those two, namely Bernie Sanders and AOC, to stay out of the race. Nathan Robinson is editor of the leftist current affairs magazine. He said this totally inexcusable that Bernie and AOC failed to back Hong. If she loses narrowly, it will be a major setback for the socialist movement that they will bear major responsibility for. Someone with a different take on why Hong lost was Julian Andreioni from Dropsite News. Americans love economic populism. They want another new deal, but they are completely turned off by college campus culture warrior performative activism. Evidence: These results happened in almost neighboring states on the same night. Andreion is comparing Hong's loss in the Wisconsin primary to a win in the Minnesota Senate primary by Peggy Flanigan. Flanigan ran on progressive priorities including universal healthcare, a high minimum wage, and an end to unconditional US aid for Israel. These were all very popular things, particularly with undecided voters. She was also massively outspent by a corporatebacked rival. Flanigan was backed by Bernie Sanders, but she does not identify as a socialist and was not backed by the DSA. Here's how she accepted the Democratic nomination. >> As your next senator, here are the things that I'm ready to throw down for. Ending the despicable priorities of an administration that hands out tax breaks to billionaires, builds gilded ballrooms, and spends billions on bombs while screwing over working people. >> Truly affordable housing so that people can pay their rent and young people can buy their first home before they're middle-aged. passing right to repair so that Minnesota farmers can fix their own damn equipment. And getting rid of prior authorization so that some dude behind a desk or worse yet an AI bot isn't determining whether you get the life-saving health care that your doctor has prescribed. and passing Medicare for ALL because we are going to make healthc care aa available and affordable once and for all. >> She doesn't identify as a socialist. That's winning. By the way, when people talk about policies far to the left of the Democrats, you know, then at any point before 2016, not including the New Deal obviously, and they said, "Look, I'm not a socialist. I just want to put working people first. I want to stop tax cuts for billionaires. I want to stop support for Israel. Uh I want to build homes for working people, but I'm not a socialist." Fine. Knock yourself out. That's winning. When people do everything you want in your agenda, that sounds like Bernie Sanders. Uh, but I'm not a socialist. That's fine. And by the way, before people in the comments say, "What a s socialist democracy." I know. I know. But clearly the the the tenor, the tone, the rhetoric, that is far and brimstone left politics. If she doesn't want to identify as that, great, fine by me. uh to get a lowdown on Tuesday's primaries and what they meant for the American left. Uh earlier on today, my colleague Michael Walker spoke to Branco Maretic. He's of course a staff writer at the magazine Jacoben. >> I think there was one major race that was a very bitter disappointing loss, which is the um gubernatorial race in Wisconsin. I mean that and that really was, you know, the biggest prize for socialists because it uh it was a statewide race in the Midwest. uh socialists want to prove that they could win in a Midwestern state on the state level. Um and and it would have been an electoral test for the socialist movement uh in the general election. So that was really the biggest prize and that's a massive disappointment. Uh is it an overall defeat? I I think it's hard to make that case when if you look at the the the candidates that DSA chapters, Democratic Socialist of America chapters actually endorsed. Um most of them did end up uh moving on to the general election and winning their races. Um now those I don't think eclipse the the uh Fran Hong defeat but it is important I think to keep it into perspective that the you know on the whole social scandid end up winning uh last night. >> Al so just ju just just to clarify because I know I've very much familiar with Hong and Flanigan. What are the DSA backed or sort of DSA candidates who who did win last night? What kind of races are we talking about there? >> Um, there were several incumbents that won re-election. Ryan Clansancy, for instance, in Wisconsin. He's in the state assembly. Uh, there was also Omar Fate, which you know, he he had run for uh uh mayor of of Minneapolis. He won his state senate re-election bid. But there were also others that that won. I mean, in Minnesota, for instance, the school board race, uh, Twin Cities DSA endorsed candidate, uh, won for that position. You had, um, a socialist candidate, actually running, two socialist candidates running to replace, uh, Fran Hong in her current seat. One was a DSA, DSA backed socialist candidate, um, uh, Juliana Bennett. he lost to another socialist candidate. Um uh and and I also have confirmed uh from uh Ryan Clansancy who I just mentioned before that uh the Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus uh which did not exist 4 years ago and the last time it existed was about 100 years ago is going to expand in the next legislative session. uh partly because of um you know some of the the wins that I mentioned but also partly because I think some members are going to um join that caucus who were not identifying as socialists before. Um and then sort of a few other kind of uh uh smaller races down ballots uh that were won by socialist candidates. Um, so, uh, it it it also I I'll be remiss to mention to not mention, um, in Connecticut, um, in Vermont, which also had primaries, there were several, uh, socialist candidates that won, including one for the, uh, Connecticut uh, state senate, I believe, the the first Muslim um, uh, candidate that that will sit in that body. So, um, there are some some other major wins, you know, if we look beyond that that one kind of very disappointing defeat. So you got you got some some local victories alongside the sort of nationwide defeat or I suppose this is a statewide defeat but it would be to go to a nationwide body. Um what happened with Hong then? I mean there have been I mean there's been some fallout today. I've sort of seen it on X. Um people arguing whether or not um Bernie and AOC have let down the socialist cause by not backing Franchesca Hong. Um I mean obviously people on the other side saying that they made the right decision because she was a weak candidate. This is what they're saying. she was a weak candidate and she probably would have lost in in the generals and that would have been more damaging for for socialists than her losing the primary. Um where do you stand on that? >> Um I think it's a fair criticism. Uh I mean Hong lost by a few thousand votes uh uh you know I think it was 4%. Um, so you know, if Sanders and AOC and and not just those two, I mean, you know, the entire kind of uh slate of recent socialist candidates who went to campaign for Abdul sayed in Michigan just last week, they stayed away from the race. Um, and I think that uh uh reflects some of the internal doubts uh within the left about, you know, Hong as a candidate. Um I I think a lot of people were kind of wanting to see if she would be able to get through this this primary um before they kind of stepped in and wanted to to lend their names to her campaign. Um but at the same time such hesitancy can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it could be that that you know by staying away from the race um they they you know may have ended up kind of securing a defeat for her. Um I think also you know before we get too hung up on these endorsements you know we don't know if these endorsement would have made a difference there's also other factors that that uh played a role in this. I mean one was you know again uh Hong the socialist candidate was way out spent by the kind of Democratic party establishment. Um her campaign was really running on on fumes. It wasn't very well funded. I think they spent something like half a million dollars or less than half a million dollars um on ads um whereas uh uh Crowley the candidate who ended up winning the forces behind him spent about $4 million. So it wasn't as dramatic a overspending ratio compared to the the Michigan race although that one really was a an outlier in terms of just how much money was being poured but but they were significantly outspent. Um there were also you know internal uh uh mistakes that that the Hong campaign made arguably mistakes. I mean you know for instance Hong was the only candidate who did not spend a single scent on TV advertising. Um and she you know I think I think that was the strategy was we're going to try and focus on the voters that that we need to turn out that we know are going to be enthused about our campaign. But it could be argued that, you know, in that final stretch as the establishment was kind of um really attacking her and as they spent big on these um on these ads that that were kind of calling into question her electability, putting some money towards television advertising herself to kind of reach some of these voters and allay their their fears um may have helped to combat this. um you know and and I think other people have point out that that Hong didn't really go on the attack whereas in the final stretch they really were hammering her um for some of these electability concerns and you know there have been questions raised about you know could Hongk have been a little more nimble and skilled and kind of dealing with some of these um questions that were being raised about these old tweets and so on and so forth. you know, with every campaign there are a million things I think that that you can point to, but but I think you know, in terms of what the campaign itself could have controlled. Um, those are things that should be looked at uh, you know, and reflected on in in the months ahead besides just the kind of uh, standards and AOC and and so on, not not jumping in. And another analysis I've seen on online today from a bunch of people is to say Penny or Peggy, sorry, Peggy Flanigan um who who has become the Senate candidate um in in in Minnesota, she's a sort of economic populist. She wants Medicare for all. She wants to reign in the power of the billionaires. Um but she hasn't got the same sort of history of saying abolish the police or cancel Halloween. And that shows actually the way to victory, which is economic populism without the kind of cultural stuff that many people find alienating or weird. Um, and I suppose this feeds in really, doesn't it, to to AOC saying woke one was crazy. So, how does this result feed into that particular debate about whether or not economic populace should ditch the cultural stuff? >> I mean, I think that uh the defund slogan, for instance, you know, that that one has been problematic. uh you obviously it made sense at the time but there has been an effort by socialist candidates since then to kind of reframe how they how they uh uh talk about this issue. um you know I mean actually polling and even elections show that that the public is in favor of diverting uh uh funding towards sort of more less punitive kind of uh and and and and you know alternatives to policing basically you know people who are first responders who who aren't police who aren't armed u mental health professionals and so on and so forth we have seen that actually be an electoral winner in certain parts uh of the country I I think I think you know uh the fact that you see people like Hong and Al sayed kind of you know and and Zara Mandani too kind of backing away from some of these issues I think reflects acknowledgement that that that you know this is not necessarily the most electorally viable thing and and you know I mean when it comes to um uh some of the more cultural stuff you know some of the things that Hong really became controversial for you know talking hating on holidays, public holidays, and talking about race in these very kind of specific kind of campusoriented ways. Um, you know, I think that stuff has really been acknowledged, widely acknowledged as pretty toxic and alienating. Um, I think that's an outgrowth of where the left was uh in this long period of wilderness in the uh the first part of the 21st century. And I think there's an understanding that that you know to to really be able to meet people where they are that kind of stuff has to be left behind. Um I think with Figan we should also mention I mean Figan was kind of a more establishment um uh candidate even though she did have these policy positions that that overlap with the left. I mean you know she was the lieutenant governor. So she was someone who was a more of a well-known quani in in the state um is and was able to kind of balance those progressive positions while while kind of having the the opaces of of of being a sort of more establishment back candidate. >> Super interesting uh conversation between Michael and Branco. He does great work. Jackman does great work. There is so much interesting media right now in the states. You know we've just cited of course drop site news a little bit earlier in the story. There's Jacobin too, other publications as well um just coming from the left and and helping to redefine the terms of what's just a credible political conversation which is really um distilled with someone like Peggy Peggy Fanigan, right? They they have the agenda of the radical left in the US of the DSA without being in the DSA. Great. Um and I do think there's a learning there in terms of these two different politicians, Peggy Flanigan and Hong. um and and why one did well and and one underwhelmed, right? I think it's it's pretty instructive. I I agree. It's actually quite straightforward as to why that happened. At the same time, I think Hong is 37 now, so they were 31 when they were saying that stuff. I'm 42, so that's a baby, of course. Um but you know, people can say slightly strange or incoherent things during a co lockdown. And I don't think that should disqualify them from ever standing for public office. But you know what? She's young. She can stand again. Uh but that stuff just isn't very popular. As my colleague Michael Walker has said many, many times. Um it's just not popular with a median voter. And that's fine. You're allowed to think it. You might even be right. You know, Michael Walker might be wrong. But if you want to win public office, you can't really say that. Does that mean that, you know, more people in prison is a good idea? I think Britain, for instance, has too many people in prison. I think America certainly has too many people in prison. Um, what are the solutions is of course the point, right? That's that's what you're then meant to discuss. But these kind of huge statements that are just sort of put out on social media, again, fine if you want to do it, but if you also want to win public office, it's probably going to hold you back. Uh, as this person found out this week, um, I would say thank you to Michael Walker. He wasn't here tonight. He had to leave. This wasn't a live show. Of course, it should have been. It could have been. If you want to future proof Navara Media and stop that server from just dropping off the face of the earth again, you know what to do. Go to navaradia.com/sport. Help us build a new media for politics. We can't just have a single point of failure when it comes to our servers and our our infrastructure. So whether it's one pound a month, uh two pound a month,5 a month, whatever it is, help us keep on building this project. 1.3 million subscribers here on YouTube. We're gonna hear a million on Instagram very very soon. I think in the next week. So, we're taking these conversations certainly in the UK to a very very big audience. One pound a month. Help us do that little bit more. Thanks everyone for tuning in. 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