Reform UK BUSTED In Channel Four Investigation | Novara Live

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, a Channel 4 investigation has claimed two top scalps at Reform UK. Not what they wanted on day one of their conference. Also, Bernie Sanders has called for a deal between the US and China to pause AI. Um, I think it's a great idea, of course. Um, but I speak to an expert on how that will be seen from Beijing. And talking of Beijing, have I lost the plot about China? Um, a new article in Unheard magazine suggests maybe. Um, tonight I'm joined by Johnny B, who happens to be a contributing editor at Unheard magazine. And a little clue, he wrote that article, so we will talk about that at the end of the show. Some bad blood between us. >> Not at all. >> Um, Johnny, tell the audience a little bit about yourself. >> Yeah, so I uh used to work at the New Statesman. I used to be a policy writer there. Now uh I work up uh remotely for unheard but I work up in Liverpool. I'm contributing editor >> and you interviewed me in 2021 for a PhD you were doing and we were just discussing before we went live how catch your name you gave your PhD. >> Are we publicizing my PhD going to scroll through it? They're going to be looking for any guy. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's it was about Corbinism and you Michael being one of the sort of main sort of media mouthpieces of the new left media. you were you were our number one target. So, thank you for thank you for saying yes to this interview all these years ago. >> That's the kind of ego stroking you've got to do to get on this show. So, >> well, I'm going to attack you later about China. So, >> perfect. I look forward to it. Um, if you'd like to support our work, you can sign up, of course, at navarmedia.com/sport. You can also listen to the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Please do like this video. Please do subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. And do not forget to let us know what you think in the comments below. Straight into our first story. Nigel Farage has long been facing difficult questions about his finances. An understatement perhaps. Um and also the general finances of Reform UK. Now so far the biggest controversy has involved an undeclared 5 million pound donation from a Thai based crypto billionaire. Um as you'll probably already know, Farage denies breaking any rules there and a parliamentary committee is set to make their own mind up in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime though, an undercover report from the investigative group Verbatim working with Channel 4 News appears to have caught key reform leaders redhanded. Um, so this investigative group had an undercover reporter pose as the British son of an American father who was keen to donate to reform. Now, it's against the law in the UK for political parties to accept donations from foreigners. So, it's relevant that this was uh a British man explicitly trying to funnel donations from his, you know, invented American father. Um, but this undercover reporter got on got in, sorry, with key figures in the party. Um, like head of policy James Ore. Apparently, if you have a nice posh British accent and potentially a lot of money, it's quite easy to meet these people. Um, let's see the first clip from this Channel 4 documentary because James Ore here suggests um that the undercover journalist's fake American father could pay for a poll commissioned by reform. >> So, we run we're going to run this 18k. >> Mhm. >> And then I I maybe somebody I could think of who they could send an invoice to. >> Mhm. >> Well, that's that would just be a a suggestion or not. Like it's not it's not a indirect campaign party contribution legit. >> Polls can set the agenda. This is vital for reform. They're fighting government plans to cancel local elections. But a poll packs far more punch if it can't be traced to reform. >> I need somebody to pay for it and it can't be um >> can't be a reform donor. >> It can't be a reformed donor. >> So you >> Well, it sounds perfect. which sounds funny. Um, and in terms of bang for bang, I mean, it could be a great story >> and allows us to be it all to be completely legit arms length. >> Nothing untoward about it at all. >> Now, clue whenever anyone says nothing untoward about it at all. Um, there's definitely something untoward going on. Um, this arrangement that was being arranged there. So James or wanted this fellow uh or his dad to pay for a poll commissioned by reform. That would probably be illegal. That's because donations in kind have to be reported to the electoral commission. This poll was reform's idea. It was commissioned by reform because they thought they would benefit from it. Um but they didn't want to pay for it themselves. So they asked someone else to foot the bill. That is a donation in kind and reform didn't declare it. Um actually three polls were commissioned this way. all undeclared. Quite a lot of money spent. I think about 30 grand. There's also another reason this whole arrangement was potentially illegal because these donations in kind were funded by a foreigner, the American dad. Naughty, naughty. Um, it's not just James or who was implicated either. Dan Jukes is Nigel Farage's right-hand man. Um, he's also in on the polling ruse. Um, so there are clips in the show. I recommend you go watch it. um where he's sort of saying how brilliant it is um that this undercover journalist, his American father has paid for all of these polls. So that's bad enough. However, he also suggests a more direct way for the American businessman to fund reform via his British son. >> Realize that you can do it. >> You can do it. A key moment Juke suggests William can pay using his father's money. And actually that kind of disrupt this as a as a solution. >> The solution is that the father gives the money to his son William who hands it over to reform. That would be illegal. But Jukes claims they've done it several times before. >> But you know, serious point donates to us and he donates through >> they donate through their >> through their kids. Yeah. the one of the things I was known the father and it's the son. So there is that is one of the ways in which >> have you had >> so all of those beeped out names and we can presume were foreign citizens who had donated to reform via their British sons. So it seems like this is a common occurrence. Obviously it didn't actually happen in this case because it was a ruse. Um he was an undercover reporter. his American dad didn't actually exist. They did actually pay for the polls. So, the undercover reporters did actually front the cash for those polls. Um although I think they assume they were doing more damage by exposing this than getting those polls on the front cover of some newspapers. Um let's look at what actually I think is the most damning part of the whole documentary though. >> Just in the interest of straight sh um how much what kind of figure donations on the table? Why? So, so I've got a budget um for >> So, we've got Yeah, we've got a commercial operations and this sits somewhere between the commercial and the philanthropic, right? It's it's it's a little bit of both. Um so, I think we could probably go, >> you know, if I make it to number 10, you know, you're having a pie with who's effectively going to be cheapest staff at number 10. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> If that doesn't if that if that isn't business interest, I don't know what is. >> No, exactly. Exactly. >> That is so shameless. Right. He's saying, so the guy who's posing as a son of an American businessman, he's saying, well, I've got a budget, some of it's business, some of it's philanthropic or political or whatever. And then the man who is who was Nigel Farage right-hand man who thinks he's going to be chief of staff in Downing Street saying, "Well, to be honest, this would be a business expense because with just half a million quid or whatever, you're going to have a direct connection to the next prime minister of the UK. And if that's not a business interest, I don't know what is." Now, what does that suggest? that he thinks there's going to be some financial benefit to the guy who donates to Niger Farage, which to me looks, you know, like a nudge nudge wink wink. Um, there could be some useful corruption um that might be able to happen here. Um, reform have been reported to the police. James our so he was the head of policy also quite a sort of, you know, prominent man. He's a associate professor at Cambridge. There's some controversy about that as well, I should say. But he was supposed to be sort of the intellectual or one of the intellectual powerhouses of of reform. He was the head of policy. Dan Jukes um was Nigel Farage's right-hand man. In his own words there, he thought he would be chief of staff if Nigel Farage was prime minister. They have both been suspended. So, Reform haven't said nothing to see here. They've said, "We've watched the documentary and clearly there are some questions to answer here." Um Johnny, this is a very effective sting, right? Undercover report. I mean, it's expensive to do undercover reporting for a year, but they've taken out two of reform's most senior figures on the eve of their conference. >> Yeah, it's massive. I think um it struck me watching it how old fashioned it was. It's been a while since we've had an oldfashioned sort of hidden camera sting like this. It reminded me of the days of the fake shake or Sam Alladise with his pint of wine and the sort of the secret the secret bongs. But it was yeah, good old fashioned bit of journalism. I mean, I thought, what's going on in reform? Didn't Dan Jukes or James or Google this supposed American millionaire? Did they have a sort of fake LinkedIn for this guy? Was there an extensive sort of social media presence? Did they plant articles about him? Because if you have a lot of money, you're sort of multi-millionaire American, you know, you tend to leave a sort of paper trail. And it strikes me that due diligence wasn't done, like how stupid it was. I've got a sort of very tenuous connection with with these guys. I saw James O at the National Conservatism Conference a few years ago and he's kind of a spearhead. He's kind of a figurehead sort of spearheading this kind of slightly incoherent movement that sort of does a slightly more nationalistic sort of conservative thing. Rather than being into globalization, it's into protectionism rather than being for sort of free trade and business and sort of multinational corporations. It's more into kind of workers and sort of appealing to blue collar voters and small businesses and sort of petty bourgeois interests. So that's the kind of political brand that he sort of represents. But David Jukes, sorry, Dan Jukes, sorry, Dan Jukes, I saw in Makerfield, his the reform sort of headquarters in Makerfield was 2 minutes down the road from the labor u headquarters. I went down to the to go and uh try and get into the the reform headquarters. It was a reform. It was it was a pub. And Dan Jukes sort of uh saw me and another another journalist sort of uh I don't want to name him but a sort of blue labor right. And we was like, you know, can we come in and have a chat? Blah blah blah. And he was basically no no we don't we check your credentials. No. So he did more due due diligence on us than he did for someone proposing to donate, you know, a foreigner, you know, it's against the rules foreign people donating wanting to donate sort of £500,000 to the party. >> Yeah. >> So what happened here? That's a good point because they didn't mention it in the it's a half hour documentary as I say go watch it. It's on YouTube. >> Um and they don't mention if they did create any fake identities for anyone in the background. But what they do say is that sort of halfway through the documentary, someone from reform wants to meet the dad or they think it would be useful to introduce this American dad. >> And I mean at least according to the narrative of the documentary, they just hire a random guy. Yeah. >> They just hire a random American actor to be the dad. So, if they're being honest about, you know, the order in which things happened, they can't possibly have created a fake identity because then reform would have noticed that a different man turned up. >> It doesn't look like the guy in the picture in the picture. So, it does seem like they just didn't Google him. >> Yeah. >> Like if someone's going to give you half a million quid, Google them. >> Yeah. Literally. And and James James is the head of policy. I mean I was saying earlier offer this doesn't strike me as something sort of going out canvasing sort of for money off millionaires doesn't strike me as the sort of main sort of primary responsibility of a head of policy >> you know he's there this guy you know he's a Cambridge academic a sort of theologian as I say sort of spearheading this kind of national conservative movement this kind of slightly sort of slightly weward brand of um of the sort of sort of populist right bit more Trumpian bit more kind of uh robustly nationalistic etc um But he's meant to be sort of coming up with ways of translating that kind of slightly broad, slightly incoherent thing into a manifesto right before 2029. And yet here he is going to sort of like gentleman's clubs and sort of clarages. Like >> I think they love it though. >> Of course it's like it's not this is not a chore for him. Like the idea that oh I've met someone who might be able to donate lots of money to reform and I can smoo him in clarages. Like that is what they live for. And when they say sort of like nothing untoward going on here like nut wink wink that's like this is what they had wet dreams about when they were sort of in their bunk beds in boarding school. Um >> allegedly >> Farage allegedly very important Farage isn't resigning. So these two have have been suspended but Farage is going to stay the course. Um, however, he also features in the documentary, right? And the documentary, you know, it's it's implied really that he must have been aware of the foreign funding helping reform. Um, and as I said, that's because this this fake American businessman and his fake British son got to meet the reform leader. I >> came a long way to meet you, sir. A long way. >> True. >> But but it's been adventure. >> Wyoming to Clton. >> Well, I'm very very impressed. I've been working with with James with Dan for uh for ages now. I was really really excited about this meeting. I think we can properly, you know, kickstart the the next phase of our of our support. It's it's it is really a pleasure to introduce you both and and and that's what we're interested in talking about is the next phase of our support for the party. >> Okay. I uh run an American family office and I haven't been able to donate directly to this up to this point, but I was thrilled to be able to pick up the tab for the polls that you had commission. >> That was great. >> It was and the third poll. >> It was boom. >> Right. When I saw the third poll on the front page of the times because William sent it to me, I thought, well, all right, these are people who know how to spend the money and that's what I want to see. Bang. That's exactly the phrase bang for the B and there it is. So you have >> I used to work with D on that but I get it. So Farage clearly knows what's going on, right? The actor, I mean, they want to implicate Farage, right? So they're very explicitly saying, "I'm American and I paid for the poll that you reform wanted." And that ended up on the front page of the newspapers. And Farage is like, "Yep, it was great." You know, he's not saying, "Oh, what are you talking about?" He's like, "Yep, that was great." Which to me looks a bit like caught red-handed. I mean, the fake American businessman in in a later clip in the show um also discusses his plans to donate to reform via his son. So, sort of the explicit funding that didn't come but would have come. Um and Farage in response to that says, "Thank you both of you." Um so, again, he seems to be more than happy to go along with this. Um Farage on LBC today said the polling isn't an issue. He's saying that there's nothing actually has gone wrong here at all. Now, as I described at the beginning of the show, and as is sort of clear from the Channel 4 documentary, it seems like it is an issue. It seems like electoral law was probably broken. Um, Farage also said he was just busy on a bi-election campaign. He meets loads of people. He was just being polite, I suppose, is the argument he's putting forward. Um, the issue though has dominated the first day of reforms party conference, as you would imagine. Um, Farage had a pre-arranged press conference with the French farright politician Jordan Bardella. um where the plan was to make a bunch of headlines around channel crossings. Instead, um Farage was left to say this. >> The motives are without any shadow of a doubt. These are a bunch of far less activists who have perpetuated hoaxes for many, many years, including, as I say, their criticism from the Senate. So, look, they were trying to entrap people. Sadly, they got some way down the line, but not all the way down the line. We have not taken an illegal penny in funding. That is that is important. The loose pub talk, frankly, there was a bit of boasting, a bit of jackaly going on there. If it was more serious than that, then I refer you back to the BBC's question earlier. You know, there would be the names would have been put onto the program and there would be hell of a row. They don't exist. Those donations don't exist. Am I annoyed? Am I annoyed that these people even got to meet me? Yes, I am. It should not have happened. >> Should not have happened. The two individuals involved are not even part of our fundraising team. So, they should have gone through the appropriate channels. Checks would have been made and they would never ever have got to sit down at a table with me. Elsewhere on the media this morning, I heard Nigel Farage describe um James or um and um Dan Jukes as contractors, you know, as if they were sort of just like people who brought in to do up the kitchen. And it's like they were head of policy and your chief of staff, right? These are very significant people. So for them to res I actually think there's a big problem here for reform in terms of personnel just like there aren't that many sort of people with experience who who already work for reform. So if you lose two of your top people that's an issue in and of itself but then the fact that at reform conference where they really wanted to make a bunch more headlines about channel crossings everyone is just talking about how corrupt their party is. I mean they're screwed. >> Yeah. I mean, I was kind of surprised that he threw a and jukes under the bus in a way because as we saw in that clip, he's kind of banged to right demonstrating he has full knowledge of at least half of the this aspect of of of this thing. You know, the sort of polling aspect and you know there's plausible deniability around the donation, but really it he thanks them both for the donation. It's pretty clear he has sort of some some knowledge of it. So, >> so the donation, just to be clear, the the donation, the direct donation to reform didn't happen. No. So, he says thank you in advance, I suppose. >> Right. But it shows that he's kind of got prior knowledge of something untoward happening, right? So then if you get rid of and jukes, it's kind of you admit that they've done something wrong and that you knew about it. So if you knew about it, then surely it's time for you to go too. I mean, he's not going to. You know, the reform party is the Nigel Farage party. Without him, they're nothing basically. But it's kind of surprised me because this is a kind of a departure from the way they dealt with the harbor donation, the sort of separate story that was going on about the 5 million um no strings attached donation he got from this crypto billionaire that was resident in Thailand because he just came back and said I'm not I'm not answering any questions. I can do you know I could I could have bet all that money on a horse as he said you know I could have spent it down the pub. It's none of your business and this is an establishment stitchup. This time there's a much clearer admission of guilt which I'm surprised about. >> I suppose that's because I mean it seems like in reform anyone could be thrown under the bus apart from Nigel Farage >> and has been on on multiple occasions. >> Multiple occasions. So so the difference there if you'd admitted any wrongdoing there. There was no option but to say it was Nigel Farage because it was it was a donation directly to Nigel Farage. Whereas here so the Nigel Farage has has come up with a line which is which I don't think is true but he thinks is the one that he can you know most capably hold to which is to say the polling stuff was actually fine nothing to see here there was no problem there now I think that's probably not true one because it was a donation in kind um it wasn't declared and it was from a foreign person right so that does look like wrongdoing but he can't say that was wrongdoing because that's the one that he clearly sort of knew about, agreed to, yada yada. He's saying the thing that was wrong was the arrangement to get the American father to donate to the party. And the reason he's saying that was the wrong one is because that's the one that he's slightly less clear. slightly more plausible deniability. >> Slightly more plaus, but I mean there's going to be a police investigation into all this and if they find that the poll I mean he's still he's this man is never going to resign obviously but I mean it is going to do I think quite a lot of damage to the party. Um let's see how this has all gone down at reforms at the conference today. Um our very own Richard HS is there. >> Are you worried about foreign influence over our politics? >> Uh yes. >> Yeah. What kind of foreign influence is you worried about? Well, not having our own say really being in control of our own. >> Yeah, we we left >> we did Brexit to avoid you know this incident. >> Last night on Channel 4, there was a documentary that suggested that there were American business people who were trying to allegedly donate to reform. This is illegal. >> It's all apparently right. I think nothing's been investigated properly. I think there's there needs to be done uh checks and everything done by the right people. Nigel's come out himself and said we've done nothing wrong. I don't think it's for us to speculate for now. >> And if it does turn out, if it does turn out that those people have done something wrong, they have broken electoral law, would that change your belief that reform can be the party of integrity, the party of British values? >> No. I believe I believe reform is is exactly that. But if yes, let's speculate. If it does come out that something has been done wrong, as long as it's been dealt with thereafter and that people get what they deserve who have done wrong, then >> what are some of those values that you think are so important people to adopt when they come to the UK? >> Honesty, integrity, um, uh, Christianity values. Basically, our our heritage is based in Christianity values. So, there was a there was a documentary on Channel 4 yesterday that alleged quite serious wrongdoing near the top of Reform UK uh about breaking electoral law by allowing American donors to donate to the party which is illegal. Is that honesty? Is that integrity? Does the party uphold those values? >> You know, I can't believe that Nigel Farage does not have integrity. Everything has been slung at him. Death threats, his daughter and his family have been have been harassed. um to keep going in light I don't care how much money you chuck at me to keep going in light of all that um means that he believes in Great Britain. >> What will it change for you about reform if it turns out that that >> nothing I've always I've always voted conservative. I'm 50 years old and I just can't vote for them again after they've let us down so badly for so long. >> Yeah, other parties are available. I'm aware of that. >> Why are those the only options for you conservatives or reform? There are other things you could do. The Greens, for example, >> I'm a small C conservative at heart. I believe in conservative values and I don't think we're getting those anymore from the Conservative party. Do >> you think foreign money in politics is a big deal? Is it a problem? >> Well, look at Lord Sainsbury and the amount of money he gives to the Labour Party and look what the Sainsburries does that you know the freedom that they have the supermarkets to actually stifle and destroy. again they they decide what they're going to pay farmers not what it's worth >> and then they make the millions whereas far when farmers do the work and feed you >> excuse me please >> so conference attendees um haven't been put off their support for Nigel Farage and reform um but what about reforms MPs >> you were so excited about coverage yesterday are you still excited >> yes >> even with more questions about party funding and donations >> listen can you hear the music. >> Yeah. >> Have you seen the crowds? >> Have you seen Channel 4 News? >> Have you seen the atmosphere here? >> What do you make of the Channel 4 News investigation? >> Crying out for reform to win and fix Britain. Have you never quite done this to answer the question then? What do you make of the Channel 4 news investigation? >> As I said uh repeatedly today, uh we've taken senior legal advice which confirms that no laws. I want to go and watch Zia. Um, the next home secretary is going to stop the invasion. No laws have been broken as the Casey has confirmed and an internal investigation is going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. I'm very very grateful for the opportunity to talk to you. Thank you very much. >> Now, I think there might be a bunch of extories like Suela Braman thinking they jumped ship a little bit too soon, right? They they didn't want to be walking around reform. They didn't switch parties to walk around answering questions about party corruption, right? They thought they were going to get to stand on the stage and say, "I'm going to be, you know, in the next cabinet. We hate the establishment. We don't like migrants." yada yada yada. We're riding high. When they joined the party, remember, they were far away ahead in the polls. Um, now reform sort of second and third in some polls. So, it's looking really bad for them. Um, and this is especially as their old leader Kem Beno um has improved in the polls um especially relative to Farage. So, this Hugo poll um I think just released today shows who people think would make the best prime minister in various head-to-heads. So you're asked who would you prefer Stal Bernam or Bnock? Um obviously in the past it was St. Now it's Bern Burnham versus Bnock. Now Bernham is comfortably ahead of BN on 42% to her 26%. Um but he's even further ahead of Farage. So in a head-to-head Bum is on 52% to Farage's 22%. Um and when it comes to a head-to-head between Ben and Farage, um there's been a really dramatic change. So in early 2025, Farage pled ahead of BNO when asked who would you who would make the better prime minister. Now BNO is on 45% to his 16%. So I mean the the Tories are on the up and reformer are on the down. On the down that's not it's not quite a beautiful phrase is it? Um anyway Johnny will people like Sella Braman be kicking themselves? >> Yeah well the main the main beneficiary of this is certainly Kem. I mean people like people like Bravman, Genrich, Nadim Zahari started joining um as you say when they were at sort of 28 29 30% and we're in such a fragment fragmented electoral era at the moment that conceivably sort of 30% could get you a pretty pretty good majority. um as soon as they started joining they started sliding in the polls and they're now on what 21 22 >> and this I think imposes a lower ceiling on them and I think like the sort of 20% that you have now is the people that sort of Trump described when he was having the primaries in 2016 when he was like I could walk into the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and they could still vote for me right these are the people that will it's the Nigel fan club and they will vote for reform come what Hey, but that doesn't win you an election. They need to persuade some kind of waitrose moms and sort of nice Sunday Times reading marmalade and cafe tier sort of home counties people with John Lewis furniture that they're kind of safe and you know experience and they're not going to sort of wreak havoc on the country. And I think basically scandals like this and scandals like Harbborne make that much less likely. Um, and the beneficiary of that is Kem, who can turn around and say, "I'm still pretty right-wing. Um, I'm going to deport people, leave the um, European Court of Human Rights. Net Zero is a bit stupid, but I'm not scary. I'm not threatening. I'm not dodgy." Having said that, some of the I think like some of the people you saw in the reform queue um and some of that sort of 20% block that is like forage come what may kind of have an attitude that like this kind of thing is priced in not just for Nigel but for all politicians >> the expensive scan the expensive scandal what is it 12 13 15 years ago something like that um but it's had it's even more but it's had a completely corrosive impact on how people view MPs. Yuggov was like 67% of people think they're all in it for themselves. Whether it's sort of financial gain or sort of career progression, they're all sort of self-s serving. This is like a common view. Everybody thinks this and a lot of people think MPs are on the take. You know, everyone's at it type thing. You know, the Conservative Party has auctions for sort of a game of tennis with Boris Johnson and a sort of Russian oligarch. A friend of Putin bought it. You know, this stuff is pretty, you know, we'll go to Labour conference. I'll go to Labor Conference at the end of the month. It'll be full of sort of fringe events sponsored by banks, arms dealers, you know, whatever sort of financial services companies, and they'll all be paying money to sit in a room with ministers and basically have a little conversation, shake hands, exchange business cards. You know, it's not it's not what we've seen on this tape. It's not illegal, but everyone kind of sees this kind of slightly murky kind of lobbying grubby world where sort of money and politics and the sort of revolving door between the private sector and sort of parliament and they just kind of think, well, that's politics. That's, you know, and if Nigel does it, he's not really doing something that's completely abnormal. >> Yeah. >> So, you know, I'm not defending Nigel Farage here and I normally are saying they're all the same. They're not. However, I think that's quite a common view. >> And that core is not enough though, is it? No, in a way, >> does this raise the chances of Andy Burnham calling a snap election? Because at the moment, the right is split like 50/50. >> Yeah. >> Like ideal >> and that's ideal. Like the left is not like Burnham's on a bounce. Like lots of people who are green curious are going back to Labor. >> Um >> reform and the Tories, neither of them can really claim to be the one to vote for if you don't like Labour. Also, no one really hates Burnham. Like I feel like now would be a good time for a general election. Get your own manifesto. Get your own mandate. >> Yeah. I kind of think if you look at the sort of polling of prime ministerial approval ratings for every prime minister going back to thatcher, it only goes one direction. >> Yeah. >> Unless there's a kind of huge national emergency like co for example where Boris Johnson's went from sort of decent to like ultra high like you know like uh you know uh you know Putin levels of popularity. >> Yeah. you know, in a sort of forged election, but like barring those kind of national emergencies, it only sort of goes down. The honeymoon period is the time to go. And sort of people point to Theresa May and that kind of when when the going to get your own mandate went wrong and sort of backfired. Um, she had an awful campaign, by the way. There was that awful dementia tax thing. But I would say that basically she started the campaign on 40%. And she won about 42%. >> What happens Corbyn completely hegemonized the left vote. He he he got a bunch of Lib Dems and uh managed to get from 26 to 40. But Theresa May's vote stayed steady, >> you know. And I think like the thing to compare it to is is not Theresa May, but Gordon Brown cuz every, you know, there's a consensus now that if Gordon Brown had gone in 2007 early before the financial crisis, before, you know, Northern Rock and Leman Brothers uh wre havoc with the public finances, then he would have got his five-year mandate. Um he was in that sort of that brief window of popularity and he squandered it. And I I think Burnham I think Burnham um we got a huge financial cataclysm coming down the road from the bomb markets and the straight of horm things could only get worse. I would go for it if I >> probably is too. He should he should go for it. Um we were talking about grubbiness earlier. Um and this documentary wasn't just embarrassing for reform. It was also embarrassing for other parts of the British establishment. Um why? Um because the polls commissioned by reform were planted in British newspapers. Um some of the newspapers claimed the polls as their own. So they said we commissioned this bizarrely. Um and that all meant that reform were helped in their secret plans by the laziness um of the British press. Also though they were helped by the complicity or the apparent complicity of a polling company JL Partners. Now, in the Channel 4 documentary, the undercover reporter met with the man who runs that firm. >> So, talk me through how that worked with the Telegraph poll cuz they sort I I I was I was delighted to see them claiming it as their own, but I was also like >> I Yeah, it was I >> Yeah, I mean, it's classic, right? Classic. It's that kind of like got a good story for you here >> for them. It's copy, >> right? >> So, you know, it's fantastic. Exclusive. Can we call it an exclusive? Yeah, brilliant. You know, send us a quote. >> And and do they say, "Can we run it as as you know, commissioned for the tele?" >> It's funny. No, it's so funny. No one has ever asked that, but they always do it anyway. >> Really? >> And it's better than them going and saying, "Well, commissioned by Dan Jukes." >> Yeah. Well, indeed. And that's not that's I mean, that's never going to happen cuz we'd never let that happen. >> And in fact, they don't even know that, right? >> No. No. Exactly. They would never know that. God know. Um that's the thing. That could never happen including with you. Won't >> happen. this month. >> When the poll appeared, reforms leaders were ecstatic, pushing it out all over social media. >> So, this looks really bad for him because he he knew it was commissioned by reform. He's he's saying that there, right? He's saying his contacts at reform commissioned the poll and he's saying he would never have told any of the newspapers that it was commissioned by reform, right? Which, you know, that that is a failure of transparency. Um also I can just see um as we've been live or actually just before we went live that the British Polling Council and Market Research Society two um pillars of British propriety they have announced inquiries into JL partners. Um in terms of the significance of this and what it means for the the media as well because one of these polls made it to the front page of the Telegraph in January. Um so you can see it has the headline labor would face wipeout if elections went ahead. Um this was at the point where Labour were planning to suspend um local elections while redistricting um took place or reorganization of local government. Now, embarrassingly for the paper, the article reads, quote, according to polling for the Telegraphs, that's a complete lie. Um then in May, the Times splashed with the headline that union members were just as likely to support reform as Labor. Um they didn't claim this as their own polling, but also didn't say reform had commissioned the polling, um which they hadn't been told. Um, clearly embarrassing for JL partners and that man, James Johnson. Um, also very embarrassing for the Telegraph who said they commissioned the poll when they didn't, cuz that's just a lie. The Times is probably the most borderline one because they got sent an interesting press release from JL Partners and then they put it on the front page of their paper. Have they done anything wrong? Um, I don't want to get accused of sort of defending the the mainstream media and sort of incompetent colleagues. I mean, I if if the Times was duped, then I was duped because I think I wrote a piece about that poll >> and sort of discussed that sort of move of reform to a slightly more sort of workerist sort of red toy blue labor politics when they were talking about nationalizing steel and nationalizing water and sort of going head-to-head with the Bank of England and it was obviously translating into this support from active trade unionists. So, I wrote it up, I believe, or I think I did or at least mentioned in it a piece and tweeted about it. Did I go back to JL Partners and say, "Uh, oh, who who paid for this poll?" No, I didn't. >> But, but you many I'm not sure. >> Did you write it up from the JL partners press release or from the times? >> That's a good point. I said from the Times. >> From the times. You were doing reporting. >> Yeah, exactly. Because I do think that if if if you get a press release from a pollster, you should ask who commissioned it because because they don't pay for them themselves, right? And I get I get press releases all the time from NOS's. Like it this is not just a right-wing thing like leftwing NOS's are always doing a poll sort of saying 55% of the public want tougher action on climate change for example. And it's sort of like doesn't mean that much because if to really know what the public think you have to say would you prioritize action on climate change over the economy or whatever. cost a week or whatever. if you like do you like often these polls amount to do you like good things and do you not like bad things so they're often a bit meaningless but and that's often actually why I don't cover them because I think that it's kind of push polling but if I were to cover them I would definitely say the poll commissioned by campaign for XYZ to just say a poll >> no one's paying say for the um the Yugov constant kind of voting intention no that's you pay for that themselves although actually >> that's that's kind of to to draw more business I suppose it's just something that they constantly doth Well, actually some of those I think are in partnership with I think Yuggov do have a partnership with Times and Sky where maybe Sky and Times do pay them a bit of money, but they also do it cuz it raises their profile and then >> because they've got this raised profile from the from the voter intention then >> you can commission more specific ones. >> You can commission more specific and it looks because everyone thinks, "Oh, it's a Hugo P. It's legit." >> Exactly. It's a bad day at the office for jail partners. That's for sure. >> It's a bad day at the office for jail partners. Dear idea, not that I feel, you know, who cares in a way. Do we feel too bad? I suppose I do. I always feel bad for people when they do get caught on camera sort of saying something a bit embarrassing cuz everyone said something embarrassing in their lives. But >> and it wasn't like James Johnson was kind of soliciting half a million pound donations, potentially illegal. >> No, but he was he was playing a very active role in a sneaky campaign by he's done. >> I mean, he says he was bending the rules. He says they were bending the rules. He's he's got a close relationship with reform politicians who are giving his company a lot of money. He's going to get some of that money and then part of the deal with reform politicians is that he won't say who commissioned the poll. So he's done a he's done a bad thing. >> Yeah. >> With no fair. >> Yeah. He's James Johnson is in the wrong. >> Um I don't know if jail partners will get struck off, but they should feel embarrassed and hang their heads in shame. >> Uh we talked on last week's show about the open AI hack of hugging face. It involved hundreds of AI agents breaking out of a testing environment, collaborating on a message board, sacrificing themselves for the good of the AI collective um and in hacking another company, ultimately committing quite a serious crime. Um, in short, it was exactly the kind of situation that AI doomers have been warning us about. So, how have Open AI responded? Well, they've released to the public their new, more powerful model. Um, it's called chat GPT6 Astra. >> One thing that I think people will immediately notice is if you have an idea and you want to work interactively with an AI to get uh, you know, a complex piece of a whole piece of software built. This is the first model to me where I could sort of tell someone like just give it a try. There's a there's a good chance it'll work. And, you know, I've I've watched people make computer games. I've watched people do sort of like home sort of DIY electrical engineering projects. Uh I've watched people do very complex simulations for some piece of science they're working on. Well, that all sounds lovely. What a useful piece of technology that we can now all download and if we want pay 20 a month to open AI for. Um, however, what if this new powerful model also takes us one step closer to a world where we lose control of the technology? Um, and what could the next hugging face look like? Well, the experts are very much concerned. Ryan Greenblat led the meter report into the hugging face incident, which we reported on on last Friday's show. Um, this was his verdict on Astra. So he says, "GPT6 Astra appears to be a massive jump in opaque reasoning ability. It looks like it can solve hard competition math problems entirely in its head, as in without verbalized reasoning, while prior AIs could solve basic word problems. This seems extremely concerning. So if you remember from our report last week on the hugging face attack meter which is this sort of AI safety firm they could trace what happened at open AI because the the AI agents reason in English they have a chain of thought. So they can say I'm thinking should I do X or should I do Y? Well actually maybe B will get me hit. So you can sort of see what was the thought process they used when they took their actions. You can look at their transcripts to see what they were thinking. Now in this more powerful model that's become harder to do. So, we sort of we've said, well, these were very dangerous. Let's make them harder to interpret. That's basically what's happened. Um, OpenAI have admitted that themselves as well, so they're not denying this. Um, except they say it's not a big deal. Doesn't really matter. Um, so this is from OpenAI. According to our evaluations, GPT6 Astra shows a substantial decrease in chain of thought monitor compared to previous models. Overall, our alignment evaluations show that Astra is more likely than chat GPT 5.6 six soul to respect security and safety restrictions which make us confident in still deploying this model to the wider public. So they're basically saying we understand this model much less than our previous ones. We can't see what's going on in their heads. However, in our test it hasn't acted that bad, right? So who knows? We don't understand it but it seems to be better behaved. There's a catch here though because the reason they say it's better behaved is because they've done evaluations of this model. They sort of tested it in a testing envirment. Um but the models we've been told um by the UK AI safety institute they often worked out they were being tested right so this is again what the doomers have long warned about right that AIs we don't understand what's going on they could and I should emphasize could because this is quite speculative they could be lulling us into a false sense of security right in the test in the evaluations they say oh we'd never do anything wrong but we can't read what's going on in their minds we could in the past and now we can't Because if if you're asking why would you have stepped backwards on that? I think it's because that could be seen as a waste of time, right? The most efficient way to have an AI is for it to work out what to do in its own language. It's been called for a while neural ease. So sort of instead of them speaking English, they speak their own language, which is maybe more efficient. So that can make them more powerful. It also makes it harder for us to understand what's going on. And if you don't want the big clever machine to take control, I think it would be helpful to be able to read its mind, which we can't do anymore. Anyway, this all suggests to me it's well past the time for governments to get involved. And once again, Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the charge. We need an immediate pause on advanced AI development, and a permanent ban on super intelligence, an artificial mind smarter than any human capable of operating independently beyond our control. Countries around the world must work together to prevent this nightmare scenario. That is why I am announcing that as soon as Congress reconvenes, we will be introducing legislation to do just that. Let me be clear. A super intelligent AI that escapes human control will not be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity's problem. The legislation that I'm offering would direct the federal government to not just stop super intelligence here in the United States, but work to prevent it from being developed anywhere around the world. The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of big tech oligarchs. The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future. >> I love Bernie Sanders. I mean, he's he's so ahead of the game on this, right? Lots of people were saying politicians can't really talk about this because it seems too wacky. It seems like sci-fi. Bernie Sanders, that was a clip from a 7-minute video I showed you. He sort of quoted, he's like, Dario Amade, the head of anthropic says we can't control this. Sam Alman, the head of OpenAI, says we can't control this. And he reads things from the Meter report. saying, "Look, I'm not a computer scientist, but this seems goddamn crazy to me and we should shut it down." Um, also watching that made me feel even more like when I'm reading the meter reports or whatever, like I was in a sci-fi movie, cuz that's such a scene that you would get in the sci-fi takeover movie where there's a a politician who's ahead of the game, who's speaking to the public saying, "It's time to shut it down." Obviously, in that sci-fi movie, everyone says, "No, he's ridiculous. He's talking crap." Um, of course, also by mentioning China, which you heard Bernie Sanders there say, um, he was preempting um, the criticism that would come his way when calling for an AI pause. So, the billionaire Trump donor Bill Aman said this on Thursday in response to Bernie's call, would Bernie prefer our enemies to get to super intelligence before we do? Who votes for this guy? And that's a position the Trump administration has taken in the past. Do you do you think that the US government is capable in a scenario again not like the ultimate Skynet scenario but just a scenario where AI seems to be getting out of control in some way of taking a pause because for the reasons you've described the arms race component >> it's yeah the honest question to that is I I don't know because part of this arms race component is if we take a pause do the does the PRC not take a pause and then we find ourselves you know we're all sort of enslaved to to to PRC mediated AI. >> The context of that interview, I think we did a story on it at the time, is JD Vance has has had read the report AI 2027, which was basically saying the AIs could take over and kill us all. And he took it very seriously. Like he didn't really have a critique of it, but he says, "Yeah, I mean, maybe the AI could take over and kill us all, but also I'd prefer it to be American, the AI that kills us all than Chinese. I you know, nothing more shameful than getting killed by a a communist robot. Oh, I'd much prefer to get killed by the liberal capitalist one, please. Um, as I say, that was JD Vance speaking to the New York Times last year. There are though now potential signs of a change of mood. So, Helen Toner, we've shown you her before as well. She was on the board of OpenAI. Um, she was one of the people who tried but ultimately failed to fire Sam Alman because he's a dishonest, lying path. Um, she thinks there might be some hope for greater agreement between China and the United States. The US companies will say, "Hey, we have to keep pushing otherwise China will will win this race." What exactly it means to win the race is is a longer conversation, but the China argument comes up a lot. And we actually have Trump and Xiinping planning to meet in September in the White House. And this is crazy to me as someone who has followed US China relations for a long time and also AI for a long time. AI is right at the top of their agenda. That's really interesting. Is there something that they can say to um create an understanding that we do actually have a little bit more time and space here? Whether it's a you know each leader uh sharing an a plan to domestically look at what their industries are doing and and ask more questions. So, if the Americans were interested in a deal to slow down AI, which is a a massive if, you know, I I don't think this is a Donald Trump priority, but if they were to come around to a rational position and say, "We need a deal. We need to do something about this. It's getting out of control, would then the Chinese government want to play ball?" Um, really interesting question. Carl Chan is a fellow at the Brookings Institute, an expert on the Chinese tech sector. um and he runs the high-capacity newsletter. >> Actually, yes. I think some people would be surprised, especially in the US, that China might be willing to not just talk about some of these issues, but do something jointly with the US. I think the time right now is ripe because both countries are changing their minds about um AI risk and AI safety. um the uh technology is moving very very quickly and we are getting these major incidents. Um I mean so far it hasn't seemed to you know the hugging face incident for example it didn't cause actual economic damage or or worse but I think it doesn't take a huge leap to start to see how these systems can cause real damage. Okay, that's really interesting actually because um I've sort of seen interviews of you in the the recent past where you've been suggesting that China isn't actually as concerned about these issues as the United States. Not because they're sort of they're more happy and open to have a dangerous AI, but they just didn't quite see AI in the same perspective as it was seen in Silicon Valley, which is as this, you know, potential godlike being. Um the argument I've seen you make before is that China wasn't AGI pilled. Is China now getting more AGI pill? They're starting to see this as a not a normal technology, something which is quite extraordinary, quite different. >> It's something in between. So I still think that the leaders in Beijing are not AGI pill in the sense that we think about say in the United States where they expect super intelligence to be around the corner uh completely transformative in every single domain of human life, maybe even wipe us off the map. Right? That's literally the kind of talk that we hear from Silicon Valley, from uh maybe increasingly in Washington. I don't think that's what people in Beijing think. I do think there are some people in the Chinese AI ecosystem who are worried about, you know, so-called catastrophic risk. Um but I do think there's a sort of middle ground um which is still quite alarming and that I think Chinese policy makers are taking more and more seriously and that is the risk of major cyber incidents. the risk of the technology sort of getting out of control um going rogue doing things to important critical infrastructure, important uh information technology systems that have real world impacts and that now we are not sure if we can trace that back or much less uh uh reign that back in once it's out there. >> Has the hugging face incident in particular had an impact in in China because it's I mean it's had an impact in the west quite clearly. I think it has um it adds to a ongoing list of indications um from China that they are taking some of these issues more seriously. Um so not so long ago China released a AI agent framework. Half of that was about accelerating AI adoption and agents everywhere uh how it can improve the economy. But a pretty good chunk of that was about um responsibility and control over agents. And um there's not a surefire way to deal with this. I think both China and the US are sort of groping around trying to figure out what what a good regul regulatory system should look like, but that was a big signal that it was already on Beijing's radar. Also recall earlier this year, OpenClaw was a really big trend in China. It was huge. It's this um basically AI agentic harness that allows people to you know run AI systems on their own computers at home and that can do really wonderful things. It can also sort of get out of hand and leak data or open your your computer or your IT system to uh cyber intrusions. So that's something that um China's uh cyerspace regulator was also starting to warn about. So I think that the hugging face incident is kind of the latest and perhaps the the biggest example of what could happen and how Beijing is starting to shift. >> So So you've said that China actually might be quite open to this kind of thing sort of reaching some kind of agreement whether formal or informal. Um Trump and she are meeting towards the end of this month I think on the 24th of September. Um what kind of thing do you think could come out of that that meeting? So, I have relatively low expectations for this very first meeting. And I think that we should have low expectations because I think the first time we had an official USChina AI dialogue under the Biden administration, expectations were a bit too high. I think there was maybe some hope of even binding constraints um some broader AI agreement. And when we didn't get that in the first try, we felt like, well, this is kind of pointless. Let's give up. And I don't think that this will be solved in one round of dialogue. So the key first step is to start talking to start opening those channels of communication to start sharing notes at least about what happened with hugging face, what are Chinese AI models doing? Are there incidents in China that um Beijing should or could share with the United States? Um are there communication channels even between the AI labs, the frontier labs themselves? So I think that would be a helpful first step. Um eventually I would like to see us move up the ladder in terms of what the two countries can and should do together but um starting to talk about this is actually very important and my concern is there's going to be sort of a switch between two arguments from the west and I suppose AI accelerationists on the west the first to say we can't possibly slow down our AI development because then China might overtake us but then I imagine they'll also say we couldn't possibly make a deal with China because China only wants to sign that deal because we're ahead of them and obviously these two things They're slightly inconsistent, but I imagine that's going to be sort of the default position of of Washington. I mean, is that something that you see as likely and would there be a way out of that? >> Yeah, the big problem here between the US and China is trust. Um, for the technical folks, you know, who want to see better AI safeguards, better AI guard rails, um, better safe pre-release testing, I think that there's still this geopolitical dimension to all this that we can't forget about, which is the US is very worried that, um, if we hold ourselves back, then China will race ahead. And China is worried that um some of this discussion about AI safety and AI regulation is not about AI regulation per se, but about trying to slow China down or trying to keep China out. Um so you see commentary from sort of the Chinese state media ecosystem where they're they're concerned about this being an excuse uh along with other things like export controls to to slow China's own development. So you can see the deep distrust uh from both sides. Even in the face of that, I would argue that both countries have a very strong national interest incentive in trying to figure something out here. Neither country wants their own models to be attacking their own systems. I think leaders in Beijing, the last thing they want to see is a Chinese open source model being used to hack a Chinese government website. Um, and so I think there's a lot of overlap actually in just pure sort of national interests. And I think that can escalate to uh something something bigger than than merely um standing at arms length. Another argument I've seen as to why um America doesn't need to wait to slow down because um you know the argument being we can't slow down or the Americans can't slow down because then the Chinese will overtake them is people say that actually the pace of Chinese development is is kind of parasitic on the Americans because the Chinese models or the most advanced Chinese models they're often created by essentially reverse engineering the most advanced American models via a process called distillation. Um, is that your understanding of what's going on or do you think that the Chinese in theory could um overtake the Americans? >> The Chinese could in theory overtake the Americans. Um, distillation is a factor, but I don't think it is the main driving reason why you have Chinese AI models performing so strongly. And keep in mind, we have, you know, multiple Chinese AI companies, multiple Chinese AI labs producing models that um have come out and are so strong that they can't that they've come out so shortly um or so closely in relation to other US frontier models that they don't have time to to to distill. So I think that when it comes to public models from the US, we could even see that gap shrink um between the Chinese models and the US models or even Chinese models overtake on the public side. On the other hand though, OpenAI and Anthropic seem to be now keeping some of their their truly best models perhaps in reserve uh for their own internal use. Um and then maybe they're distilling their own models and and releasing sort of a a modified version for for public use. So there there is a an issue there where um yeah at least on the public side uh that gap could could close or or even reverse >> and and talk to me about the AI ecosystem in China because I mean in our coverage of this um we're always talking about anthropic and Dario Amade and and OpenAI and Sam Alman these big characters in these private corporations which have their own very sort of specific interests who we sort of then talk about how they're lobbying the government and they're all these very sort of distinct organs. with distinct interests. Um, what's the situation in in China? Is it is it comparable or does it look very different? >> I think on the surface it looks very very different because I mean just look at the personalities and the kinds of drama that you see in the American AI industry, right? Like Sam Alman and Daario could not even hold hands at that AI summit in India. um they have sort of a personal uh animosity not anything not even to say anything of the Sam Alton Elon Musk rivalry right so in a number of these areas you see these personality clashes really come to the four and I think that um reflects and and drive some of the uh company uh level competition in China is a different story a lot of the AI founders um know each other um some were trained together some um like the founder of uh Z.AI AI also known as Drupal um was worked with the founder of Moonshot um the maker of Kimmy K3 and so there are a lot of overlaps and they are trying to build and learn from each other in the Chinese system. Um part of their open- source push is to share sort of knowledge, share innovations especially on making these models more efficient so that the the whole is greater than the sum of the parts um and that the different Chinese AI labs can can build on each other's work. So at least on the surface you have that collaboration. I'm sure there are very intense rivalries also in China. >> Yeah. I wanted to ask about that actually because obviously people associate Chinese frontier AI as being open source. Um in the United States it's all proprietary software. It's obviously anthropic and open AI in particular they own the weights. Is that as simple as China is communist and America is capitalist. Therefore the frontier of technology is open source in China and it's proprietary in the United States. Is that's is that what's going on here? >> It is funny how you have this parallel between the sort of different uh ideologies or or regime types and the uh commercial strategies for these companies and the tech strategies for these companies. Yeah, I mean certainly China's open- source push um comports well with the broader message that Beijing is trying to send to the rest of the world. Um that not only, you know, are they this sort of collaborative uh open ecosystem within China, but that they're trying to position themselves as uh partners in development for other countries around the world, especially across the global south. That's the message that's coming out of Beijing. And I think it it it's sort of like ironic how much then the US approach serves that same reinforces that same message. Right? So when um when the US puts puts export controls on um Anthropic's latest model Fable and stops other people from around the world including within the US from suddenly using that model um that sends a message that the US is more closed that Washington is more willing to um uh exert control over this powerful technology or that the uh US AI companies themselves are also able to exert more control and bring those profits back to Silicon Valley. So, I think it's funny how this is has been set up. It's it's an eerie parallel. I think there's probably not a coincidence that you have some of this here. >> Um, and you can't talk about AI or no one can talk about AI in in the West without discussing whether or not it's a bubble. And I wonder if there's a similar conversation going on in China or I suppose because of the difference of the economic model, there's not nearly as much money going into these Chinese AI companies. Is that is that not part of the debate over there? >> There there are some worries about a bubble. Um, I think if there's going to be a bubble in China, more people are worried about like the robotics bubble happening right now because there's been a huge push on humanoid robots, for example. Um, but overall, it seems like at this stage, China is taking arguably a more sustainable approach to how to do AI. Um, keep in mind in the US in contrast like the the major AI companies are building out data centers at the level of something like a trillion dollars of uh capex spend per year. I mean that's that's the projected spend for next year. Um the speed and um scale of data center buildout in the US is sort of absolutely historically unprecedented in the US and um is putting a lot of strain on local communities. is getting a lot of backlash um and is subject to supply chain constraints and a whole bunch of other uh energy issues. Um so there is a question about how sustainable it is in the US and on top of that you have um just basically two players now running the show open AI and anthropic. Um so you have a much greater concentration of industry risk whereas in the Chinese system it's uh more distributed there's multiple players and while they are trying to invest heavily in compute they're not making this sort of bet the entire economy on um on reaching AGI. >> Uh let's finish by talking about those robots um that everyone has seen sort of especially in the humanoid uh world games or Olympic games. I'm not sure exactly what it was called. Um, and I suppose I want to link this to the sci-fi scenarios we're all hearing about because I mean in the west at least there's this big division. I'm sure you know that I'm not sure where you fit within it actually. Um, in terms of people who think that these potential takeover sci-fi scenarios are plausible and people who think it's just absolute nonsense. Now often the people who think it's implausible, they think the issue is this is on a computer. How can it possibly harm us? I mean we'd need big we'd need AI robots before it would be a real sort of danger to us all. China has a lot of AI robots. It has a lot of AI drones. Is there concern in China that these things might at some point take over or is is that still seen as as far-fetched in sci-fi? >> Yeah, I think that's still in the realm of sci-fi. I think a huge um gap there is just the capabilities of these robotic systems are very very limited, especially the humanoid robots, right? It's it's sort of fun to watch the clips from the uh humanoid robot Olympics that were happening in China where you have these robots. I mean they can perform very impressive feats but they also end um their 100 meter dash by crashing into a wall or um they they they're sort of falling over the place and it's you know you know we we might even sort of overestim over over underestimate their capabilities because they seem so comical at this stage at least. But one thing to keep in mind is that this divide between the sort of digital world and the physical world is not so neat as we might want to think. And that's where coming back to sort of the AI systems, I do think that they there are real physical world consequences if we don't have a good system for regulating uh AI um whether it's the energy grid or the um communication systems. And on the robotic side, I think actually if anything, there has been a lot of a long-standing concern about robotic safety, industrial robots in the workplace, how to make sure that you have clear lines between where human workers are working and where these, you know, um large industrial robotic arms are working. So, I hope that that continues and I hope that especially as we see the proliferation of robots in more and more settings, um that safety issue continues. If only we could have that kind of safety mentality with these really powerful AI systems that IU can can also do quite a bit of damage. >> Yeah, I mean I I have to say I agree. Let's let's hope something comes out of this summit um later this month. Um Carl Chan, thank you so much for for joining us. Always a pleasure to get you on the show. >> Thank you. >> That was Carl Chan speaking to me earlier. A little bit of hope there. You know, maybe maybe if she and Trump get together, they can save us from the apocalypse. Let's hope. As you may know, earlier this year, I went to China. Um, I've talked about it a hell of a lot. I've done videos about it. Me and Aaron were always talking about China on this show, and we're often talking about what China does a little bit better than us here in Britain. Um, well, uh, not everyone thinks this has necessarily been the best way to talk about the Chinese Communist Party. And there was an article this week when Navar Media got a name check. Um, so the article is called Why the British Left Has Fallen for China. Um, it analyzes the current trend of left-wing Brits looking to China's state capacity with envy. Who does that remind you of? Um, and this is from that article. If local prospects for power and influence look weak, new objects of enthusiasm must be sought in distant clims. China fills the void. Where Britain lacks vigor, China is dynamic. Where the western left is defined by impotence, Chinese red princlings command supreme authority. Left liberal economists such as Adam Toss marvel at the results of the CCP's activist industrial policy and green manufacturing revolution. This is the key bit. The Corbinite shock troops and progressive cool kids at Navara Media are spellbound by the results of stateowned EV factories in Chongqing. I can't imagine the progressive cool kids. Chongqi. I was a I was once a progressive call kid in Chongqing. I'll take it. Um the article though as I says as I say I should say um thinks that looking to China might be a mistake for the British left. Britain isn't suffering for lack of Marxist Leninist one party foresight but rather is struck with a peculiarly British disease. The prescription will never be a replication of Chongqing. But we can take solace in the fact that we have solutions that are more mundane. long-term capital budgeting, government departments that approach problem solving by prioritizing investment over more cash transfers, planning reform that presumes a well- reggulated right to build over a discretionary right to block. And it it ends by saying if the left is to have a future um it is in Britain maxing um not China maxing. Um the author of that article is today's co-host Johnny B. Uh the link when it's the socialist lovelies or whatever it was wondering at Chongqing the link was to my thumbnail where I go like China blew my mind. >> So I took the read. I mean I like I I like to feel relevant so it's nice that I appeared in the article but um >> what's the beef Johnny? >> Well I'm a Navara cool kid now. >> True. >> Because here I am. >> Yeah. Can I just say I'm very impressed by the massive EV factories in China and all of the China maxing reels that I say. This was written in the spirit of um neoar neo mauis selfcriticism because I have been a bit of a China maxer myself >> and uh I think angloangism >> I didn't come up with it actually uh someone who works for the bank of England said it to me and I nicked it off them with their permission and put it in an article Angloism. So Angloism, Denism, Deng Xiaoping, and Deng Xiaoping's sort of big argument when he took over from Mao is to say, let's do what works. Doesn't matter if it's a a black cat or a white cat. What matters is if it catches mice. And his whole point was we need to become rich. We need to do whatever works to build the state capacity, the industrial capacity of China because all of this sort of ideology, this dogmatism, it's got us nowhere. And Angloenism is to say, look, conservative labor, liberal, yada yada yada. We need to build goddamn HS2, >> right? And then HS3 and then HS4 >> and then a gigafactory. >> Yes. >> And some housing. >> So you're an Angloangist. Well, >> but you think, >> well, okay, >> they've got something wrong as well. >> I thought it needed some qualification. Um, and so it wasn't Attack on Nara really. It was it was kind and I noticed a general trend and I think basically it stems from um there was that essay by Tony Blair which everyone was sort of enraptured by. I was like, why this guy is such a serious thinker that it was published on the Tony Blair Institute website and he was like, the left need to have big ideas from the intern from the intellectual wasteland of Corbinism. Uh, you know, we we haven't had any renewal. And I kind of read this and I thought, well, Corbinism was the opposite of that. That was the last time the left did have this kind of culture of intellectual inquiry and sort of all of these policy papers came out. uh there was there was a really good sort of well aspects of it I thought were brilliant but this really good sort of manifestos and blueprints for government um every sort of department there was a clear plan for reationalizing the railways and all kinds of things so there's real flourishing and I think I sort of realized that when the left is ascendant you get this and when the left is in the decline in decline in a sort of trough as it is now um arguably then people kind of look elsewhere for the kind of oh what Can we what can we aspire to what's the planaya you know and you know Angloism you know Deng inherited a country of you know sort of a billion sort of rice farming peasants you know who being living under a command economy um and the idea that the kind of solutions that he proposed can be easily translated onto the the British case um is kind of for the birds and I think there's always there's always a um a sort of temptation to look abroad when you when you feel impotent. You know, you you think we haven't had a pay rise. Average real wages, when I say when I say we haven't had a pay rise, average real wages are where they are in 2007. We can't build any infrastructure. There's a housing crisis. You look across every department uh in white or prisons, one in one out. Hospitals, A&E, every anything you like. Take take your pick. State capacity is just ruined. And then you kind of see these sort of short form videos and it's like the Chinese are building sort of uh it's kind of castles in the sky, you know, it's incredible things. Um and and it's always tempting to think you can just go right, let's do what this million strong sort of Leninist Communist Party does. Um and I don't think either political or economic conditions are the same. Also, we don't I mean I you know I framed this as a debate because it's better for YouTube and so I've I've I've almost sort of structured your article as a bit more aggressive than it was because it was sort of friendly criticism really. Um and I think we almost I mean I think we basically disagree if I'm honest not sorry agree if I'm honest. Um because I I I always push back against people who think and no one really does anymore but they used to with sort of thing like China is this sort of authoritarian hell hole uh where the CCCP because they're undemocratic they need to fall. It's kind of the Paul Mason line and I'm like >> like they've brought about great develop like the people there seem to like it. Uh maybe not everywhere has to look like the west, right? If if it's not my position is like if it's not broke, don't fix it. >> And they seem to be doing okay. >> And and and and my position is but I don't want to be China. Like I think there's there are some great things about China. They can build great railways. You know, they keep their billionaires in check, but they don't have freedom of speech. They don't have elections. I like freedom of speech. I like elections. We've got we're also relatively rich and we've got liberalism. If you can be rich with liberalism, fab. >> So like I'm like each to their own. >> They've done a good thing. We've done a good thing, but we're kind of flopping at the moment. >> So we need a little bit more >> bigger to build some more >> I mean, I'm a kind of old-fashioned unreonstructed unapologetic laborist. I'm I'm kind of like an allin for labor guy. while there's a sort of trade union connection and while we have first pass the post I'm like whatever the Labour part is doing the left's job is to kind of be a part of that project and try and drag it to a certain sort of leftward positions that's my thing you're not going to drag the Labour party to a sort of Leninist Marxist Leninist or sort of you know market socialist Angloangist position in the current conditions and you're not and you know you know you mentioned the kind you know there are levels of authoritarianism right and there's a kind of view outside there's a view in some places that basically modern China is kind of 1950s Soviet or 1930s Soviet Russia during the Great Terror and I don't think that you know or North Korea and that's just not the case, right? Um do they have the kind of freedoms that we enjoy? like obviously not but um you know I I live for a short time in Vietnam which has a very sort of they're sort of geopolitical enemies actually Vietnam is a much closer ally of the United States but they have a very similar kind of economic system and political system >> and it you know being there you realize that people aren't sort of all cowering in their sort of homes like sort of worrying about like when there's going to be a knock at the door in the way that sort of you know famous poets and playwrights and members of the communist party were in 1930s Moscow you know that's that's the ideology is so messy, right? Because the Vietnamese they are the Vietnamese Communist Party is probably the closest thing in the world to the Chinese Communist Party, but the Vietname Vietnamese Communist Party is much closer to the Americans, which is sort of ideologically the complete opposite, than they are to the Chinese. >> I was reading the >> um the biography of of Deng Xiaoing as an Anglo Dengist. Uh and sort of they're talking about it's in the period of rapro between the Americans and the Soviets. Sure. And Deng is sort of saying to Henry Kissinger, what the are you doing? like the Soviets are mad. Why are you making friends with the Soviets? You know, because the the Chinese hate the Soviets more than the Americans. And the one thing they're pissed off about is that the Americans are being too nice to the Soviets. You're like, you can't really understand what's going on here through the lens of like the left versus the right and communism versus capitalism. There's something much more complex and much more, you know, each side is trying to be pragmatic in its own way and it's it's messy and they're all trying to make it work in their own circumstances. And I just think the whole the framework of looking at the world through like there's the imperialist and the anti-imperialist or there's the left and there's the right. There's like it's really complex authoritarian freedom people. Exactly. The more you read about actual history. Yeah. Like obviously this is done from like the American right in the same degree where they say we are the axis of liberalism and democracy and then they go and support >> Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia yada yada. So everyone >> it's not that anyone's ideological vision of the world is the correct one. So they're all it's just all much more make it up as you go along. >> Yeah. I mean I I sort of broadly take a sort of realist view of foreign policy in that way. you know there the interests are eternal you know and you know then you got the you you had the Nixon in China moment and it's called Nixon in China you know when the when the Americans went over with Kissinger and sort of allied themselves uh with Beijing rather than Moscow but it's called Nixon in China because Nixon was able to do that he had the sort of um the kudos the cache because he was such a fervent anti-communist but it just goes to show that kind of sometimes in these international relations the kind of um these ideological labels matter matter far less right because it's in your interest to be allied with uh say you know the why is Egypt an ally of the west because it even though it has sort of 50,000 political prisoners in and it's a military dictatorship well because basically it's it made friends of Israel it's judged to be well Israel you know >> also before that yeah I mean it it was an ally before that as well I think wasn't it >> yeah I think they're the second biggest recipients of American >> AIDS American military aids and after Israel I believe >> um but it's it's about it's about competing interests right so whenever people come back with this kind of ideological kind of pro-f freedom arguments on China I'm a bit kind of like I'm a bit skeptical because I'm like I don't want to say oh I don't want to turn around and say well no one's everyone's past is the same or everyone's as bad as each other because as you say sort of they we enjoy freedoms here today that the Chinese certainly don't. Um, but we also enjoy uh close friendships with, you know, with sort of NATO allies. Look at what Turkey does to the Kurds. Um, >> and also the Chinese are richer than their parents and we're not. >> I mean, that's what they're I would I would absolutely kill for the real wage growth that they've experienced since the late '7s. Um, because we haven't seen any in my entire adult working life. I haven't seen any. >> They got such tall, shiny buildings and fast trains. >> I want it. >> Uh, let's wrap up there. Uh Johnny B, thank you so much for coming on. >> First time co-hosting in the studio. Um fantastic to be here. >> Um thank you everyone for tuning in. Um come back on Monday for another show from 6:00 p.m. Have a lovely weekend. Um you've been watching Nvar Media. Good night.