Tens Of Thousands Attend Vigil For Professor Jason Arday

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, tens of thousands have attended a Trafalga Square vigil to pay tribute to the late Professor Jason Aard and reformers proposed a 50 billion pound welfare cut which would include changes to disability benefits for millions. I'm Helena aka Justice MCG and tonight I'm joined by Bana Cambe. Baseka, how you doing? >> Hi, nice to be here with you. >> It's good to have you on the show. Good to have on the show. Now, before we begin our show tonight, we have a personal message from Navar Media co-founder Aaron Bastani. Before our first story tonight, I want to talk about my own role in the weeks preceding the death of Jason Arde and to apologize. I'm not going to speak about whether the journalism covering the story was merited or if there was a public interest in the media following the story. That was covered to some extent on last night's show and you can find discussions about it elsewhere. There are a few things I want to say though. First, it's beyond doubt that much of the deluge of coverage aimed at Jason Day wasn't just racialized, but racist. That applies to the likes of Nathan Kofnas who led with the story when the Times higher education supplement did not as well as many voices on social media. But it also applies to titles like the Times and the Telegraph who categorized our day as a DEI poster boy. As my colleague Ashar wrote yesterday, "White people when they do wrong are allowed to be individuals. Our day was made a standin for critical race theory, DEI, and black participation in higher education." Like many others, I suspect that if Jason Arde Day were a white person, he'd still be alive. Then there's the fact that much the media, despite warnings Arday was at his psychological limit, carried on chasing the story regardless. They continued to hound him even when Cambridge announced a new investigation and after Arday resigned from his post on August 5th. Reasonably, then Arday must have thought to himself that nothing, literally nothing, would stop the media from pursuing him. It was ferocious, never ending, compulsive. I've been in situations before where I felt helpless. People have tried to remove my own PhD from me. I've lost jobs because of coordinated political campaigns based on what I believe. But none of it comes remotely close to what Jason Arde endured. Between the 24th of July and the 14th of August, when his death was reported, the British press published 249 articles about Jason Arde. Importantly, most of those were published after he'd resigned from his post. The argument for the public interest, given his mental state, which was relayed to many in the media, including myself, as well as the fact he'd left his job, clearly should have changed the media dynamic. It clearly should have meant that the media stop and reflect. Except it didn't. Of course, Jason Arde was an influential person. He was successful. That shouldn't be evaded, wiped out, ignored. I've seen him referred to as a obscure academic. That's not true. He was a professorial chair at Cambridge, a guest editor on the Today program. He was a panelist on BBC Question Time. And with influence comes scrutiny. That applies to myself as well, by the way. But Aray was also a vulnerable man. Firstly, because of his neurode divergence. Secondly, because of his state of mind in those final weeks of his life. a state of mind which was widely relayed to the media. Speaking personally, I lost sight of that second part of the vulnerability. After being told of his state of mind by someone I trust and admire, I said I'd stop talking about the story, which I did. But that doesn't excuse what I'd already done. Again, I won't touch on our reporting here, nor seek to defend it, not least because I personally was guilty of something much, much worse. On the 7th of August on X, I refer to our day as a con man. Now, I'm not the Times or Telegraph or the Sun newspaper, but I do have 180,000 followers on X. That's a decent number. And with that kind of following comes responsibility, not least because it's plausible Jason Arday himself saw that post. So, what was the basis of it? What was the foundation of saying something so decisive and vicious and nasty? It was a lecture he gave at UCL where I studied in 2021 posted to YouTube. Now, I've watched that lecture back. Imagine if someone watched a video of you or me on a bad day or just a middling day, frankly. Maybe you were unprepared because of a family emergency or you were unwell. Maybe you just had bad news. You had too much on your plate. and they proceeded to impugn your character and your credentials on the basis of a single video to almost 200,000 people. If that was me, I'd feel distressed. But if that happened while the media were undertaking an unprecedented excavation of everything I've ever said or done, I'd be despondent. Actually, I'll be honest. I don't know how I'd begin to feel. It's literally unimaginable. So naturally, after reflecting on that post in particular, I'm sorry. I apologize. That wasn't journalism. Journalism is when you seek the facts. It's a quest for the truth. You reach out to sources. You engage with diverse viewpoints. This was anything but. It was bile. It's everything I dislike about the modern media. It's why we started Navara. Now, it's important to add that I said that on my own exac account, not on a show, not in a Navara media article, but I co-founded this thing. So, I accept that for many, quite rightly, the two are interchangeable. Except an apology isn't enough, is it? I wish I could ask Jason for his forgiveness for what I said, but I can't. What I can do is ask for the forgiveness of his friends, colleagues, and family. Now, they might not want to forgive me. That's their right. That's the point. Forgiveness is theirs to give, not mine to take. It's about them, not me. But when you've done something wrong, something gravely wrong, which I did, you need to seek forgiveness. You need to reflect, learn, and ensure it's not repeated. Professionally, I ered, but ethically, and that's what I really care about, I really screwed up. I can't make amends obviously, but I'm going to reflect on my behavior in all of this and how I can use my energies more productively. More productively to cover those issues our audience really care about. Those stories that really matter and on how I can make a difference for the better, not the worse. Our top story tonight. Last night, tens of thousands of people gathered in London's Trafalga Square to remember the life of Professor Jason Aard, who died last Friday. According to organizers stand up to racism, some 30,000 people attended the event with friends, supporters, and countless others mourning while standing in solidarity with the academic and leaving flowers beneath Nelson's column. Many were dressed in black with some carrying signs reading rest in power. In the weeks leading up to Arday's death, including in the days following his resignation from Cambridge University, he was the subject of an unrelenting media onslaught. As we reported yesterday, 249 articles were published about him in around 3 weeks alongside relentless social media commentary, breaking news alerts, and video reports. During speeches from friends, supporters, and MPs at the vigil, the media was a frequent focus of fury. This was Labour MP Diane Abbott. recent weeks, the attacks on Professor Jason Aday reached a climax and he felt he had no choice but to resign. And he must have felt that if he resigned, the attacks on him would stop. >> But in fact, they got even worse. Yes. >> From his resignation to his suicide last week was just 3 weeks, >> but the newspapers printed 249 articles about him. >> This was a vicious campaign, but it wasn't just a campaign against a professor. It was a campaign against all of us. >> All of us. >> And that is why it is so important and to come together and fight for justice for Professor Jason Ar. >> Diane Abbert also described the genesis of that delution of coverage. We have to remember that the campaign against him wasn't just a matter of a few weeks. >> He was first appointed as a professor in Cambridge three years ago. And for those three years, he has had a vicious campaign, a bitter campaign by anonymous people, by other professors who just didn't believe that a black man should be a Cambridge professor. Amongst those, one of the leading people campaigning against him was a prophetical Nathan Cathnos. >> He calls himself a race realist. >> He was dismissed by Emanuel College because of his racism. and he insisted he campaigned over three years against >> evil. >> He claimed that Jason was not smart enough to be a Cambridge professor. He claimed that race is linked to intelligence and that without diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, there would be no black academics at top universities. We created the university. He is well, he is well known for saying that. But stop and think how many people at Cambridge and other top universities think exactly the same. >> Photographer and activist Misan Haramman was a friend of Jason and he spoke about how he thought Jason should be remembered. Jason should still be here today. >> And those who knew him, those who love him, those who have joyful memories of him should cherish it like a bird with broken wings. It is important for Jason's children's children to know how he lived, who he was. His legacy must be one of change and hope. Yes, >> the impunity of the fourth estate must stop otherwise more lives will be lost. >> In the last 48 hours, these papers have been deleting social media posts >> and articles without shame, >> showing their culpability in plain sight. Yes. >> What kind of nation are we if we allow our fellow citizens to beounded in this way? >> We have to see the humanity in each other just like Jason did. >> Otherwise, who are we? I will finish by saying that Jason's name must mean accountability over impunity and community that this country should be proud of. >> Another friend and mentor of our days, Lord Simon Woolly, principal of Hington College, Cambridge, described what happened once the young academic was appointed to his professorial chair at Cambridge. >> And when he arrived at Cambridge, I was the happiest man in the world. But from that moment on, >> the dogs of hell started on Jason >> Ar >> because they couldn't handle >> a black man, >> a loving man, >> a decent human being >> to be in a place like that. And over those three years, I've watched them again and again and again until the pylon. Remember this. Hold on to this. This wonderful man never stole a bag of crisps. >> He He was exonerated from plagiarism. Yes. >> Yes. >> But the dogs of hell, >> literally hell, >> the hounds of hell. >> Yes. Demons. Demons >> sought to pursue any inaccuracy that they could say Jason is a bad man. Jason doesn't deserve. Jason doesn't deserve to be in Cambridge for them. Jason doesn't deserve to be alive. >> That there that there needs to be some reckoning. >> 100%. >> There there needs to be some justice. But today, today >> today for all of you, >> today with all of you, SAY AFTER ME. I AM >> I AM >> PROFESSOR JASON ADAY. >> PROFESSOR JASON AR. >> I AM >> PROFESSOR JASON ADAY. >> PROFESSOR JASON AR. >> AND I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. >> AND I WILL NOT BE >> I WILL NOT BE CRUSHED. >> I WILL NOT BE CRUSHED. WE WILL STAND STRONG. >> WE WILL STAND STRONG. >> AND WE WILL WIN. THANK YOU. >> AND WE WILL WIN. >> Labour MP for Brent East, Dawn Butler, also spoke at the vigil, calling for a clear response to Jason Aard's death. >> Now is the time to bring down the systems >> that don't protect us. Now is the time to expose those systems >> and seek transparency >> and fairness. >> We can recognize and we must always recognize the racism, but this isn't a battle against black versus white. >> It's a battle against right versus wrong. Yes. >> It's a battle against good versus evil. >> And it's a battle against the racist and the anti-racist. >> Are you an anti-racist? >> It is something that is an active. You have to actively be an anti-racist. You can't just say it. You have to do it. >> You have to be it. Martin Luther King said, "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving those who are doing the oppressing." >> This battle hasn't changed. It's just the method and system that it's different. >> But you know what else is different? We are different. >> We are different. There are enough of us. There are more of us than there are of them. >> And we have the different generations together, uniting together. We can hold them to account, >> but we have to do it together. >> We can also support each other. We can also lean on each other. >> We can say hello to each other. >> We can say WE LIKE WHAT YOU'RE WEARING. >> We can love each other. The thing that will conquer hate is love. >> The vigil closed with Bel River Riberro Adi, the MP for Clappam and Brixton Hill where Jason Aday was from, reading this statement from his family. >> This has been an incredibly painful time for our family and we are still coming to terms with the tra tragic loss of our beloved Jason. What has become clear over the past 72 hours is the profound impact he had on people. We are grateful to all who have created light in this dark time through kindness, generosity, and solidarity. Your presence here to remember him this evening means a lot to us. And while we cannot be there in person, please know that we stand with you in spirit. The public cruelty Jason was subjected to was too much for any man to bear. The outpouring of love, support, and grief since his death means so much to us. Although it is bittersweet, now kindness is needed in life, not just in death. We'll never know what might have been different had he experienced more of it while he was still here. What we do know is how deeply he was loved. And we wish to especially thank those who knew Jason in life and tried to get through to him, who supported him in his darkest hour and who saw the person in the middle of this awful storm. Above all, we wish for Jason to be remembered for the wonderful person he was and all that he achieved. A selfless and gentle soul, he tirelessly uplifted others through his words and actions. His achievements were great and we do not want misrepresentations about his character to overshadow them. >> By continuing to share memories and stories of the positive difference he made, we hope to remember the fullness of his life. As we move forward, we ask that people honor Jason in the way he would have wanted with peace, respect, and grace. >> We trust people to act in that spirit and to be mindful of local permissions which may be required for public events. We hope people will understand that as a small and grieving family, we are not able to review or lend our endorsement to events organized by others. Finally, we'd like to share some words from our beloved Professor Jason Arday. Every human life has a purpose. Imagine what might happen if we're all united in the just cause of valuing human beings equally. Then maybe, just maybe, all kinds of great things might be possible. Let that be our Jason's legacy. And may he rest in peace, >> Van. Obviously, the vigil was had lots of number of people in attendance. It was a very deeply moving I think and um very unique as well. What were your impressions of it? >> Yeah, I think I think it was a really moving event. I mean, the turnout is really significant, right? that that tells us a lot about the the the emotion that this particular event has struck the the death of of Jason Aray 30,000 people kind of at last minute's notice you know the vigil I think was only organized Friday night Saturday morning perhaps at the at the latest so that really says something about the way in which this has really impacted people and you know just with my interactions with people what I've seen on social media you know the outpouring of grief about this has been you know really really significant I thought some of those speeches as well um that you showed uh were really really important. Dian Abbert I think is right about the manner of this being a vicious campaign. You know, this really was a campaign out to get a particular individual motivated a lot by race and by the racism in particular of one individual who seemed to have quite personal awful grievances. because I know we're going to talk a bit about Nathan Kfass who was who was mentioned a little bit in the in the segment as well and she said something else really important as well and Dian Abbott is someone of course I think who knows a lot about what it means to be you know a person of color a black woman in the spotlight you know to have your uh your right to be there kind of unfairly questioned to be unfairly scrutinized by the press right so she's got real skin in that game but she said something else really important as well which was that you know it's a threat to all of us I think she's right about that there is a a real threat to all of us about a press that is able to go on the rampage in this manner and is able to target a particular individual. So kind of, you know, in a way that's completely out of scale and completely disproportionately and is able to do so like at least in part by being motivated by a racist individual, a kind of racist uh uh uh scholar at at Cambridge. And that that's something that should touch all of us and should worry all of us because I do agree that this probably won't be the last time that we see more very hardight racist kind of mobilization of these types of things and using the press and using the media as a means to do it. So I think that was a really really significant kind of intervention that that she made. 100% 100% agree like any of any any minority background as well as any person who is uh not from like like the white majority in this country anyone tomorrow who's even like a vaguely public figure could be the next target and in that realm right like the media has come under like a lot of scrutiny uh during the speeches but also in terms of the discussion after after what happened uh I mean more plenty more to come I'm sure what would you like to see happen next >> yeah I mean there's questions isn't there about the media And and that's where I think most people's grief and and kind of anger and frustration is at at the moment is in the media. And you've got kind of two sides to this, right? You've got the mainstream media in particular. And thinking about the scale and the the proportionality of the way in which they reported this, the manner in which, you know, we I'm sure many of us have seen screenshots of of advertisements, for example, about, you know, advertising or or pushing a kind of minor story about Jason Idea for for clicks and, you know, for money. That's really quite gling, isn't it? That the kind of transactional nature of, you know, financially of what it meant to the press becomes very clear then, doesn't it? Which is, you know, extremely worrying. That's not really a press which is acting in public interest. That's a press acting in the interest of profit and kind as well. It's cyclical as well because as soon as they publish more pieces about it to generate all of the AdSense revenue, whatever it is, it becomes even more of a public story which draws in more audience and then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that the story will become even more overinflated even than it already was at the time. >> Yeah. And I think Will Self wrote a very uh long piece about this which I think is is worth looking at which kind of really unpicks the media's role in this and and he talked about the concept of like you know the grid used in kind of like mainstream media, right? and and the ways in which they're they're very specifically looking at, you know, analytics of of what is playing well and what isn't. I think it was mentioned by one of the speakers there that that the media attention really rockets up post resignation which logically you would think it would do the opposite, right? If especially if you're thinking anywhere near the realm of public interest, it should decline and instead you get a rocketing up and and that's clearly because you know that they must have seen a profit incentive in doing that as well. So I think that the mechanisms of capitalism within our media system are very much intertwined but >> they smell weakness right is resigned right as soon as there had been like a victory for as far as the press line on this was concerned and of course the broader kind of the right-wing and the more kind of racist elements of the coverage were concerned right they'd they'd won someone had gone like they'd got what they wanted they had removed uh the person who they feel shouldn't have been there because of his race in lots of cases is. And so what else do they have left to do other than stick the knife in and do a victory lap around around this man's career? You know, it's really sadistic in a way. >> Yeah. Deeply deeply sadistic. The other side of it as well, which I know the show touched on quite a lot yesterday, is is also the role of alternative media, right? Or or leftwing media and media that says it's it's going to be different. You know, we want to do something different, right, compared to the mainstream. that's why we're here, you know, and I think it's incumbent on me to also reflect a little bit about some of my involvement in the commentary on this story, you know. Um, I think there was a lot of grief and a lot of upset about elements of things that I had said and I want to, you know, in the spirit of just being completely transparent, offer my full apologies for that. I think one of the things for me to think about as somebody on the left in media and in alternative media is is that there are choices, editorial choices to make about whether you try to counter a story like this or a manufactured story like this uh or or whether you just choose not to cover it at all. And it may be reasonable, I think, in this case, to say it might have been fair or better, particularly given the wider context of of what was playing out with this sheer amount of of media attention that was already on uh Mr. day to have just not talked about it or not covered it. Um, and I think sometimes as well, and this is just personal to me, I know I can't speak for Navara and I'm not speaking for Navara, but for me, I think sometimes in in rushing to not allow the right to dominate the narrative because these narratives are scary that that the right propagate, right? You know, um, trying to push out this idea that it's it's DEI gone mad and now black and brown people have got all these juicy spots in academia at the expense of white people. And I think sometimes in in an attempt to try and counter that with a leftwing alternative, you know, that that can kind of take people do derail people off that, you know, slipping down that that line of thought, I think you end up talking about the arguments, but you know, I can forget that there's an individual here and there's an individual who also deserves empathy and consideration and and a person at the heart of this and and for that, you know, I'm I'm really sorry and I really do regret that as well. So there's there's lots on here for alternative media to reflect about how it moves forward with this for there to be a bit of a reckoning with us as well because if we say that we're going to be alternative media then we have to mean it and we have to do it. Yeah. There has to be an actual because again all of the coverage was around everyone else's discussion of him as a person the role that he had less than institutional critique in lots of cases which there was there was institutional critique from some people but there was the predominant coverage that we saw from obviously purely right media but then of course like alleged left media as well and of course independent media also covered individually his story rather than what was going in the background. the reason why it was even being covered in the first place. I remember when it first kind of broke, I I didn't even think very much of the story and then I turn away and I come back and suddenly it's dominating every single headline, every single newspaper, every single magazine is covering it. Everyone and even then, even outside of the media, on social media, in just the broader like discussion in the public realm, it was it was everywhere. You couldn't avoid it. Every single person had their own take. They used tweets and Facebook posts and posts on Instagram and Tik Tok were going viral everywhere. It was the talk of this made its way to the United States and made its way to other countries. It became a a global story. It kind of metastasized out of control. Uh and you know, every single extra voice that goes into that is feeding into what again what we'd heard from how Jason spoke to his friends and his confidants about how he felt like he was un he was it was relentless the way he was being covered. >> Yeah. And he clearly felt like he had no other way out. and that kind of human cost to a a story. It's it's an incalculable cost that the loss of somebody's life, you know, and and that has to be some kind of a a watershed moment um in in a lot of ways, I think, including here in sort of alternative and leftwing media as well. >> 100%. I mean, like what this story reminds me of actually as as a kind of crawler, there's a I don't know if you knew about the story of Dr. to Beth Upton in Scotland who became part of a media storm around like a high-profile case in terms of the NHS with somebody uh taking the NHS to a tribunal over the fact that she was transgender and people were sharing a space with her right and basically Beth Upton the doctor in question she was cleared of any wrongdoing but NHS was found to have not followed procedure but they it became like part of the right-wing kind of discussion of the day of the discussion doo sure and again reams and reams of articles social media posts it was all part of thing and she moved to Australia. She fled the country to move to Australia because of the the level of kind of the press scrutiny level which had upturned her life again for nothing other than existing transgender basically and the media followed her to Australia. They posted stories in this country and a in Australia go look what got this look what this doctor did look don't you know who she is and she basically couldn't even in another country of the world and and again like when the press can act like this in the way that it did to Jason Hardy again it's it's tragic and it is it shows that the level to which that these things can take a mental toll on people and it's I mean because social media especially and of course the public media too and media we are part of public media more broadly in an internet world it's just impossible to ignore it's impossible to extricate self >> from where the discourse goes online. And unless we check ourselves and everyone of course again we we covered this on our show and people cover this individually and unless we all check ourselves in the level to which that we understand how these things can get out of control so quickly. There's a broader discussion how the public realm has to take account of the fact that in an online world it's it's it's so different to what it used to be in terms of public coverage. >> Yeah, absolutely. Completely agree. Now, we saw Dan Abbott mention Nathan Kofness there, the white supremacist philosopher who triggered the media deluge that overwhelmed Jason Aday, posting on Twitter, he couldn't resist inserting himself into other people's mourning, writing this shortly after our day's vigil came to a close. There is an anti-offness hate rally in Trafalga Square with 15,000 attendees. If I were in London, there's a real possibility that I would be murdered. Thousands of academics and journalists knew the truth about Jason Aday for more than a year. Now, you know why no one said anything. Now, first of all, I'd like to contend with the idea that somehow that there's been a truth that's been established here. Lots of these things are still up in the air and plenty of things that have been shown like the claims were made who's been cleared off. For example, the plagi claims by LGMU for example. And second of all, I mean, I don't think, you know, necessarily people are paying for uh people being murdered here. But I don't think you understand, Nathan, just how much like the hatred you pedled and why people are reacting in such of a way. It's interesting the bubble that he's in where, you know, he's so convinced that he's uncovered an ultimate truth that people just too unwilling to hear rather than someone who's a peddler of crank pseudocience. Um, who is denigrating entire demographics and then wondering why there might be a harsh backlash to his, you know, pretty hateful comments and his despicable ideology. Banana, what do you think of his comments? >> It's the usual kind of victimhood mentality, isn't it? Somebody who's actually wielded an extraordinary level of power as an individual. you know, he's he's managed to not only get Jason ID to resign, but consequences of course far far worse. Then that is now playing victim. You now that people are gathering together, as is their right completely to do in a country that's supposed to have free speech and people's freedom of speech protected, the right to gather assembly, that's that's wrong. Now, this this victimhood mentality twinned with with somebody who's actually got an extraordinary amount of power is, you know, the level of delusion that that must must require is, you know, really quite astonishing. I mean, when I first heard about this this gentleman, you know, and the idea that he called himself a race realist, it's an oxymoron, as you pointed out, right? There's no there's no such thing as being a race realist, like race is a it's a socialized it's a sociological, pardon me, category, categorization of things. It's invented. It's made. You can't be you can't claim it's real. Realist about what? It's made up, you know? It's completely completely ridiculous. And of course, that's just a pseudonym anyway for saying you're you're racist. You know, that's who that man is. He's racist. And he's very clearly, I think, been driven by racism in this story. You know, that the things that he's talked about in terms of saying, well, you know, black and brown people, you know, they need DEI, otherwise they would never be good enough on merit. You know, it's totally ludicrous and ignores, of course, the fact that, you know, there are plenty of middle class white, you know, male professors, I'm sure, out there who, you know, probably wouldn't have got to where they've got to if they weren't middle- class white and male. So, you know, how do we account for for that? So, I I just find him to be a kind of highly distasteful individual. And it's one thing for him to be a distasteful individual on his own. That's one thing. But it's another thing for him to have been able to wield that level of power and be taken kind of so seriously, I think, suppose, within our kind of wider structures. And that's that's something of concern, right? It's one thing for you as an individual to just be quite horrible and have these kind of really awful backwards racist views. It's another thing for that to be then twinned, of course, with with power. Um, that's the really scary thing. >> Yeah. And none of the I mean, a very precious few outlets that commented on this story mentioned the source of this. M >> they talked about the claims that Jason that that they'd allegedly been able to dig up, right? But at no point did they pinpoint the fact that all of this kind of media ferore came because you know right-wing media channels were trolling right-wing blogs for for scandalous stories that they could then promote. They there was a real kind of dereliction of duty I think from lots of corners of the media to give this guy the cover of not you know making it clear that the reason why this discussion is happening is because of what is essentially as far as I in my opinion kind of racist crank pseudocience masquerading as proper inquiry. >> Yeah. Uh and I did a Sky News segment on this on on sort of Friday evening in the wake of the news and and one of the things they said to me was well this investigation originally was coming from the Times higher education uh publication and they they didn't mention the origins of of it either. So yeah, there's been a real amnesia and and a real blind spot to put it kind uh kindly in terms of uh the reporting on this and and where the kind of racist core origins of this story have come from. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. On Sunday, Reform UK's Treasury spokesperson Robert Generick penned an article to the Telegraph proclaiming that the welfare state was neglecting young people and briefing a set of brutal cuts to the welfare state. He started by admonishing the rise of those claiming disability welfare. Some 6.9 million people are now entitled to receive disability benefits, 2.5 million more than 20 years ago. More than 20,000 join the personal independence payment case load each month. And twothirds of those who began claiming in 2017 were still claiming it 5 years later. By 2031, health and disability benefits will cost £110 billion a year, £3,600 for every family in the country. This is not an epidemic of broken backs and lost limbs. Since 2002, the share of working age people claiming for mental health and behavioral conditions has tripled. This is not generosity. It is suicidal empathy. It's not the first time the right-wing have invoked the concept of suicidal empathy. a cannard that has breached containment from the hard right in the US to pervade through UK political discourse. Its invocation suggests that the country is so keen to show empathy for those with mental health concerns that is causing the entire country to collapse. It implies that somehow the vulnerable and those that care for them are to blame for the social malaise of modern Britain. But the claims that this is down to the rise in PIP claims is difficult to justify when 66% of PIP appeals are successful and people stay on the health element of universal credit long term. Suggesting that these are not people on the take but those with genuine concerns that the welfare state is there to help. Also, there's no such thing as claiming for mental health. PIP claims are based upon the ability to perform certain tasks. It is not awarded based on condition. Generic then went on to lay out the kind of savings that Reform UK would be proposing. On Monday, Reform will publish Making Welfare Work, a 50-page plan for the most comprehensive redesign of the welfare systems machinery in a generation. The scale is enormous. The coalition's welfare savings under Ian Duncan Smith, then regarded as the outer limit of political possibility, total 20.5 billion. The Conservatives today proposed 23 billion. Our changes, which go far beyond disability benefits, are more than double that. 22 billion pounds of our reforms will take the form of changes to the disability program alone. A reminder for those at home that Ian Duncan Smith reforms to welfare that Reform UK wants to eclipse in scale by a factor of two were part of an austerity program that studies suggest cause up to 33 330,000 excess deaths. The initial reporting by the Telegraph on Sunday reported that Reform UK were planning 50 billion of welfare cuts in total, including scrapping PIP and LCWA altogether and instead instructing belleaguered local authorities to provide non-cash services and support through local disability accounts. Ref removing or modifying the benefits of almost 3 million people. And what's interesting here is that the biggest thing that I think is probably one of the only good things you can say about things like PIP and its predecessor disability living allowances, what they provided in terms of cash payments were the way of providing the disabled who were able to claim those things even if maybe they weren't large enough in scale or in terms of their generosity. It gave them independence through cash payments to be able to decide for themselves what they should use their disability welfare for and how would best help them on an individual case because no disability is the same. But by taking away cash payments and then saying look here's the burden that we can place upon local authorities and then go through all of the different bureaucracy that that would entail essentially again further this idea that the disabled people are a burden. They can't look after themselves. They can't be given independence. They must be treated as a burden upon local authorities and be doled without support just as the state would require them to have rather than them choosing what support is best for them. Again, which is going to tie the disabsal paperwork in bureaucracy and also remove the sense of independence that they've been allowed to gain over the last however many years in which that we've come to better understand the individual needs of each disabled person. Now, on Monday, Generick unveiled their welfare reforms in a press conference. However, there was one substantial change in rhetoric from the briefings at the weekend. >> Unable to return to work will go through a single rigorous disability needs assessment, replacing today's many overlapping assessments. Cash support above standard universal credit rates will be reserved for severe cases. And those who need additional help beyond living costs will receive it in kind through disability support accounts. and the most vulnerable will continue to be supported through personal independence payments reformed and enhanced as PIP health security allowances. It appears that at least rhetorically reform UK have realized that eliminating an entirely disability welfare scheme such as PIP wholesale isn't popular, preferring to change tone and imply that PIP will continue in some altered form for a mythical cohort of the most vulnerable that they have yet to define. Now, this was confirmed by Genrich during the Q&A. >> In terms of people who are currently claiming uh for example PIP, well, what we're saying today is that PIP will continue, but it's going to be reformed. We're going to create a new version of it and we're going to ask those people who have mild conditions, principally mental health conditions, to be reassessed. I think that's common sensical because we see the vast increase that we've had in recent times of those conditions. For other people, what we're proposing today will actually be better, will provide more security because instead of being reassessed on a rolling three-year basis, these are people with serious disabilities. We're going to give them the peace of mind that I think they deserve and we're going to say that they're not going to be reassessed for the next 3 years and then they'll be reassessed in the normal way thereafter. So for the people who really need the benefits the most, this is actually a significantly enhanced position with greater security. Now I don't buy this for one minute, but what we're definitely seeing here is the invocation of the deserving poor versus the undeserving poor, the the people who are trying versus the skyvers. When in reality, if you're going to try and get 22 billion pounds of welfare cuts purely on the disabled alone, the idea that you'll leave everybody who deserves it untouched and only attack the people who are undeserving is total nonsense. It's totally unworkable. No amount of mass will be able to make that up. Because again, the of course the problem here is is that he doesn't understand what he's saying here. The idea that I know there are lower level mental health concerns that are being taken up by PIP that doesn't exist because people are judged as I said previously based upon their ability to perform certain tasks. You're not judged based upon your individual condition. It's how your condition affects you and how it how you struggle with such a condition and what extra you need to be able to mitigate that condition through cash payments which is how PIP works. And this is the three card trick that every single welfare reformer tries to do when DA was replaced with PIP and when PIP will be replaced by whatever crazy mad system reform want to replace it with. The way in which they justify is always well the previous system let so many people who don't deserve it through the cracks and allow them to claim fortunately but we will protect everyone who does need it. What happened when we replaced DA with PIP when Ian Duncan Smith got his hands on the welfare system? Huge numbers of people who did need it ended up not getting access to welfare. Remember ATOSS miracles? Remember the obscene stories that we saw about people being declared fit for work or having been declared as if they weren't actually disabled when clearly that they were when they had been in remission from cancer and recovering for example. These are many many cases that we saw. It is always the case that people are overegged in terms of the amount of people who are are undeserving of these welfare benefits especially when it comes to fraud when it is close to 0.2% 2% according to the DWP's figures which actually aren't claiming uh in the veracity in which they should be. So I don't buy any of these arguments from Robert Jenri for a moment. But when it comes to PIP and them saying actually not getting rid of it, they're only reforming it. Why the partial U-turn? Well, this next clip might be why. Most of your target seats are in areas where people with a high proportion of people on welfare. Frasen Nelson did some analysis yesterday showing that your top 20 target seats. You don't just have 20 target seats. >> Your top top 20 target seats. >> Sorry to break the news to the times. We've got a lot more target seats than that. >> I said top top 20 target seats are PIP uh hot spots. People listening this morning uh who might be feeling frightened hearing that that kind of vital lifeline could be cut. What's your message to them? And do you think that might be a difficult message for you to sell at the next general election? >> Well, let me be very clear uh if I haven't been so already. We are going to protect the most vulnerable in society. Nothing that we talk about today is about pensioners. In fact, part of the motivation is to continue to provide the support that pensioners need. It's by doing tough things like this that we can continue to sustainably pay for the triple lock, for example, for pensioners. We're ensuring that children who are currently claiming or their families are claiming on their behalf disability benefit will be protected. And we're saying that those people who really need this are always going to be protected under a reform government. We're not abolishing PIP. People are obviously familiar with that. But we are reforming it and ensuring that it works better. and in particular looking at the minority of people who for whatever reason have been able to claim it particularly for mental health conditions which I think most people in the country now agree with us is not sensible is not sustainable that is the issue that we're really looking at >> the reform is running into the same problem that Labour did last year everyone believes that they are part of the deserving poor and that everyone else is part of the undeserving poor triangulating around popular polling support for welfare reform reaches a hard reality when a country actually has to contend with what welfare cuts might entail. There is no goldilock zone where welfare can be dissected entirely down to those who genuinely deserve it and filtering out all the chances as then the systems allow genuine claimments to fall through the cracks. And it's not just theoretical. Reform voters have reacted to the weekend's briefings with horror. This is what happened when a PIP claimment interrogated Genrich on Talk TV. You know when you go out canvasing and you meet people that you have to convince. You're going to have to convince our next caller. George is in Dundee. George, you through Robert Gener. >> Hi. Yeah. Hi. How are you doing? >> Hi. How are you? >> Good. Um I was a reform supporter but after thinking about what you said yesterday the last 24 hours you've kind of lost a couple of votes in our household. Uh I'll tell you the reason why. I take it you've never claimed benefits. Right. We have been through, my wife claims the equivalent of PIP in Scotland and she's been through hell three times trying to reclaim it. And part of the problem was your Conservative government last time who tried to reform these uh benefits. People fall through the net and every politician I hear just says the people who will need help will receive help. Bull. Absolute and utter bull. cuz you don't know enough about the system and how it works. Tens of thousands are then cut off and have to reclaim. It is an absolute faro system. So, I'm sorry. I'm no prepared to take that risk for my wife. So, you will not be getting my vote. >> Robert, well, if I can give you some reassurance, what we're proposing is to to keep the current system of PIP. So, uh, your wife shouldn't be, uh, losing that, but we are going to reform it so that we get those people who frankly shouldn't be on it, >> tennis elbow, >> back off it and back into the workplace, which does not, I mean, I I don't want to pry into uh, your wife's condition unless you want to share it with us. Uh, but it does not sound as if uh, she's one of those people who's taking advantage. >> Now, the caller is absolutely right. Generic knows naff all about PIP or the welfare system or how it works, especially when PIP is an income supplement, not income replacement. So trying to imply that cutting access to PIP would get people back into the workplace would add as the opposite of reality. A sizable number of PIP claimments are in work. They are in fact less likely to stay in work without their income supplement that allows them to make the reasonable adjustments to their life that are necessary to keep them there. Luckily, however, for Robert Genrich, a belligerent Jeremy Kyle stepped in to save his skin from some actual scrutiny. George, you would accept the people are taking advantage, wouldn't you? >> I would say not as many as they think under the current rules. What they should do is have set illnesses. >> Hold on one second. Are you telling me that there are two million people? See, this is where I This is just my opinion, mate. And I respect you ringing because that's the whole point of a democracy. The system was set up to help people like your wife. It was not set up, mate, to give people with tennis elbow the ability to sit on their ass and do nothing or have six months off because they've gone online on a computer and ticked a box and they've got anxiety. And it strikes me whatever the political party, I've done this with the tries, I've done it with reform, I've done it with the Liberal Democrats, whenever anybody talks about truthful answer as a man here, right changing the system, the genuine, which is what I said 25 minutes ago, the genuine claimants get really fearful and they think, "Oh my god, it's going to be taken away." But what you don't say to yourself is there are hundreds of thousands of people milking this system that are making it more difficult for your wife to get the money that all the people know she should get. Pal. >> Well, that's where you're completely wrong. And again, you have no experience of this. You don't know if my wife's a mangerer or not. You've no idea. I have no said witches. Right. Secondly, the people that are claiming for mental health are doing so under the current rules. What any political party should do instead of this can you get out your bed on a Tuesday? Can you lift your harm arm above head height on a Wednesday? You get it? It should be set illnesses. If you're an ampute, you get it. If you're blind, you get it. If you've got motor neurone disease, you get it. It's simple. Robert. >> Well, look, I I just say that this is not by and large about physical disabilities at all. It is about these cases of relatively mild conditions. And I'll give you a few stats. At the moment, 214 people are signing on for disability benefits every single day for mild anxiety. I just don't think that's right. And and I don't think it's right for those individuals either because I'm sure in most cases sitting at home, you know, watching telly, doom scrolling on your phone is much worse for somebody who has mild anxiety than being out and about getting a proper job. >> And again, I just want to take this mild anxiety claim to task one more time for those at the back. No one is claiming PIP for mild anxiety. To be able to claim PIP, you have to demonstrate to the GWP that you have significant amounts of problems doing daily tasks, whether it's mobility or daily living, there are two different sections for this, right? When it comes to the daily living component, you have to prove to the state you find it very difficult to do so many different things to be normal for everybody else. Right? If you are able to cross that threshold and show that your condition is debilitating enough that you can't do those things, then you qualify for PIP. If you can't demonstrate that, then you don't. And I will reiterate 66% of PIP claims are granted on appeal having previously been denied. This is the what the cases when people have not just mild anxiety but lots of cases anxiety disorders. There is a difference by being anxious and having an anxiety disorder. Those two things are totally different. The fact again that Robert Generick is trying to pedal this nonsense, this lie, this this fabrication that mild anxiety is somehow part of the things you can claim PIP for. when again you're not even assessed on your condition. You're assessed on how your condition affects you. And on top of this, people who are claiming for anxiety or having an anxiety disorder can also be claiming for other disabilities at the same time. These things are all noted down if you suffer from a myriad different conditions. I would be willing to bet that lots of people with physical disabilities also have a lot of anxiety around those things. Two, as long as you are above the threshold, you score enough points in terms of how it affects your daily living, then you can claim. If you can claim it and you are suffering what is as far as I can see significant impacts on your daily life, your condition is not mild. I want to make that expertly clear and also want to say I disagree with the caller too. I think the way the system works in far as how it judges who are supposed to be eligible is good. I just wish the assessment criteria was a little less humiliating and clearly it is very difficult given how many appeals are had and how successful those appeals are. Now Genrich wasn't the only one to have to face their own electorate. This is what reform counselor Laya Cunningham faced when guest hosting LBC. >> I do not agree with getting rid of PIP. I have a I am a cancer patient. I work part-time. Metastic breast cancer. PELB B2 gene carrier. Unfair dismissal protection goes. I'm out of a job. I'm out of my home. I'm 57 years old. I'm a pal got a palative hair care care husband. 15 different disabilities. He worked for HMRC. the HM government kicked out 10 years ago. Get rid of his PIP. No trips to hospital. He's got liver failure. He's blind. He's epileptic. I can't even get a council property despite having the overall point. How the heck is hell am I supposed to vote for reform? >> I'm so sorry. >> What's reform going to do for me? Nothing. >> Elizabeth, I hear you. I hear you. And we we genuinely care about the people in vulnerable positions like you. It's why we got into politics. And and it's not about cutting benefits from people who actually need it. It's about telling those who could work that they should work to protect exactly the benefits for the vulnerable that need it. And I'm so sorry that you're dealing with cancer. Um it it's a very tough time and and you're in Haringay. I I'll come and see you, Elizabeth. I'd love to. >> I'm sorry, Ila. You got into politics to protect the vulnerable and the disabled. I call Like not only did you yet again claim that you needed to slash peep pip to get people into work when quite literally speaking to someone who just told you they claim pip whilst working. the fact people like this can't even scrape the mental wherewith altogether to Google how does pip work before hosting a high-profile discussion program but to claim about the disabled to came to clare sorry to came to claim to care about the disabled whilst both the party you belong to and the rest of the right-wing media in this country having been engaged in a multiple year-long campaign of manufactured consent for the mistrust of the disabled is quite frankly despicable. The UK has an incredibly strict and humiliating disability welfare system. His only saving grace is that Pippa affords cash payments to allow the disabled some degree of autonomy and reform wants to take that away too. Banska, what did you make of those clips? >> Yeah, it's always interesting, isn't it, when you see reform kind of cornered on these things when they talk about their kind of natural comfort zone, i.e. immigration, you know, they can kind of really write the rules and set the paradigms and set the narrative. But once we take them away from that comfort zone and away from their ability to just kind of lapse into that, we see a different side to them. we we see a side where I think like they are really kind of struggling a bit. Completely agree with what you said um with regards to the actual quite high threshold that there is for access to PIP and the idea that you can't just claim it off the back of you know mild mild anxiety. But I thought it was also really interesting that you know Robert Genrich said you know lots of people have got mild anxiety and that just can't be right. But he's got zero curiosity as to why lots of people might actually have quite a lot of mild anxiety regardless of whether or not that allows them to to access PIP or not which is that there is a kind of whole infrastructure and way of living now which has been dismantled you know by his politics. This is his politics of action and he is dealing with the consequences of that which is what we're seeing now. You know this neat crisis is another kind of outgrowth I think in in many ways uh of that as well. I know we're going to talk about young people in a minute too. So there's this just this kind of zero curiosity from Robert Genri. you know, they just can't be right. Yeah. Need to look in the mirror. I think actually you need to have a look at some of your policies. Reform is now in a bit of a real constriction. You know, can they really build a base of voters out of enough people who essentially are not going to be relying on various different types of of welfare? Right. Me and you were talking earlier about this idea of a shrinking middle class, which I think is is definitely happening. I spent several week uh weeks ago a bit of time in Johannesburg in South Africa for example where there's this very stark class distinction where that there's virtually no middle class. You know there you're either very poor or you're well off but that there's kind of no no middle ground, no middle class, which is kind of a snapshot of of where really we could get to. Right. There was a study done a couple of years ago in 2024 from the financial uh fairness trust that said that you know middle classes earning up to 60k a year was struggling materially. So you've got this kind of shrinking base of people in this country and and if reform are trying to appeal to those people well those people increasingly they don't exist you know so they need a bit of a material lens I think really on on on their politics to understand their voters actually a bit better rather than being I think kind of lazy and just trottting out the same old well-worn conservative Tory party ideas about you know welfare and expecting that to work you know they are in effect perhaps going to be a victim of their own policy Many of these people are in effect rampant neoliberals, however much they want to dress themselves up as being for the working man. They may well find themselves to be a victim of those same those same policies and that same ideology, you know, when it comes to the the ballot box. >> Well, that's the thing, right, is that lots of people who are proposing this like Robert Genrich is a Tory Ktoff himself. It's a party full of Tory Ktoffs, right? And you made a really sient point there that they don't understand who their own electorate is. still working a lot of these extoories on the premise that they are speaking to the electorate that voted for them during the George Osborne period right the aspirational middle class obviously the homeowners who clearly still part of more of the older generation who tend to vote for both the tries and reform but in terms of the areas of the country it's not the London commuter belt it's not the more kind of affluent areas of kind of rural Yorkshire that these places that are voting for reform though no it's post-industrial poorer more lots of whiter areas lots of lots of more workingclass areas of this country and you there's a lot of correlation here. High instance of people who claim PIP in these constituencies was mentioned in the question to Robert Generick at their press conference. And what that ends up meaning is that they've totally misaligned where this policy is supposed to go and they've immediately disabused huge numbers of their voters in terms of not real at least ex Labour voters in lots of cases or you know or non- voters who've been brought into the fold by reform speaking for a very spec specific electorate of people who are concerned with immigration but less so concerned on cost of living the economy and stuff like that. That's what a lot of the polling shows. Whereas conservative voters rank the economy as higher than like migration and probably they probably conservatives have welfare similar well probably higher than than reform do in terms of their policy perspectives. I was also note Andy Burnham's response to this too on the you know on the on a provisor that we understand that some of these people can be ex labor voters ex- labor constituencies post-industrial like northern towns and in the in the country like Alex can you roll the clip of Andy Burnham's response please? Some rules you look at and just think, "How can that be fair?" One of them is the 9:30 a.m. restriction on disabled people's bus passes. Need to get to work, college, or hospital appointment? Well, you better hope it's after 9:30. It makes no sense, and I'm changing it. From April, disabled people will be able to use their bus passes for free at any time on any day. Scrapping the 9:30 a.m. restriction is something I did as mayor of Greater Manchester, as well as bringing in a two pound cap on bus fairs. Now I'm doing both nationally so more people can make full use of Britain's most popular form of public transport and you can get where you need to be for less. So whilst of course the Labour party have talked all about disability reform. We'll talk about that in just a second. At the very least Andy Bernham's you know he's clearly noticed that there's going to be a lot of negative backlash to reforms announcement on PIPS and he has immediately gone and said okay well look well we're going to jump into the media ecosystem going here's the thing I'm doing for the disabled right. Do you think is there there's a notes like the the change in strategy from the burner administration? >> Yeah, I mean definitely right there's there's a deafness to this and and I know some people want to say it's it's just comms. The comms are a lot better. Yeah, for sure. But the the policy strategy, not just the way in which the policies have been communicated, but the policies themselves and the policy strategy is I think is remarkably better. you know, K Sama, if you think about it, in many ways, I think he paid a big price for himself, you know, career-wise, um, in terms of really not taking his base seriously and really not understanding who Labour voters were. He completely took them for granted, you know, and that was kind of a real, you know, a kind of real fatal mistake, I think, for the kind of Kama Morgan Mweeny project, right? Um, so I think Andy Barnum, um, Andy Bernham, pardon me, is being very smart and very deaf, I think, in this announcement. you know, that that's not to say that I think there won't still be really big decisions to come on welfare. I'm going to be, you know, watching that first budget like a hawk because it's going to be really interesting and really important to see about how they get that balance right. They have talked about the idea of the welfare bill overall coming down. So, I don't know if there's going to be some difficult decisions to be made along along the way, but but for now, I think that he does seem to be kind of lasering in with these small, you know, cumulatively it's big or it feels big, right? But in terms of the individual policies, they're small, right? And I think that's quite a smart strategy to kind of keep feeding in those gaps and and just doing these very small concessions towards cost of living which is on everybody's mind and doing so in a way that serves and shores up his voter base. >> 100%. It's clear that there is an attempt to make sure that K's favor now to be able to generate some level of public support, public benefit of the doubt and public buy into him as prime minister before then launching into the bad stuff later which is again the biggest mistake that Kana made is when in when it's a government go everything sucks. you're gonna get poor and there's nothing that you can do until things get better later on which immediately soured all public relations towards him. And now we see the difference here least popular prime minister ever. Andy Burnham plus 19 in the approval stakes which is higher than we've seen for any mainstream politician in decades as far as I can see. And again I think you're right. I'm pretty certain that we'll end up seeing those swinging cuts happen eventually once the the public kind of bare that doubt has kind of been been set. But until then, it's clear that, you know, immediately as soon as you hear reform announce policy that, you know, affects people in Labour's former heartland voter bases. And you go, look, I'm going to support the people the reform are clearly trying to tell not to vote for them anymore, which again, despite me dis disagreeing with the broad scale of Labour's welfare policy, it's certainly a good strategy. Now, one other thing that I noticed from the rhetoric of Robert Genrich is that in both his Telegraph article and his speech on Monday, his main target was young people. In fact, he was explicit in his speech in wanting to ensure pensioners didn't deal with any welfare cuts at all. Heaven for fend that someone might dismantle the bureaucracy. And again, like they didn't talk about attendance allowance, only PIP. Now, this follows on from Labour's plans to tackle young needs, those not in education, employment, or training. It follows on from Generick's article that echoed Labour's rhetoric about how the state is failing the youth by allowing them to claim welfare in the first place. In the long run, the current number isn't anything special in UK terms, even though it is rising currently. These figures are also higher now than they were in the 2000s when working age welfare was a higher percentage of GDP than it currently is after IDS's welfare reforms. It also follows data showing that youth unemployment is higher across Europe, although statistics do vary. EU youth unemployment is around 15% roughly similar to the number in the UK and there are countries such as Greece with high youth unemployment and less generous welfare too. So I don't really buy that welfare cuts will encourage the youth into work. In fact, this review of European welfare systems showed that quote generous social benefits for young unemployed people are a crucial element in every route to keep the neat rate low, directly contradicting right-wing received wisdom on long-term youth unemployment. Another proposal, Jennifer floated a Dutch style approach to sickness support linking employers to insurance schemes to cover those off work sick. But appears the government is already looking at the Netherlands for welfare reform ideas. According to a policy announcements announcement published by the Sama government, the governor is open to almost 180 Dutch style youth hubs over the next two years to tackle rising youth unemployment as a nation needs number hits 1 million. That report goes on to describe how while visiting the Netherlands, the work and pension secretary saw how Dutch and Punt youth points are bringing youth services under one roof, helping them record Europe's lowest need. and also says that the secretary of state vows to learn from the Netherlands approach where young people are given multiple chances through work study pathways, employer partnerships and apprenticeships to build a system where inactivity is the last resort. Now, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with looking to other countries for successful welfare states. It's just a shame they all seem to ignore the data showing that other countries getting better outcomes by being more generous, not being more draconian. What I will say though is that the constant refrain of the youth being the main problem for the welfare state when they only make up only 20% of working age welfare recipients is especially gling when the biggest welfare expense and the fastest growing welfare expense is the state pension of which every member of the uni party refuses to touch like the triple lock is staying in place for the foreseeable. Now on the subject of the uni party the Tories have made their pitch to the youth and it's not exactly barnstorming. Remove young people's working protection to save summer jobs. atory say, "Yeah, take away workers rights from the demographic that voted overwhelmingly for the party who just passed the Employment Rights Act." Now, this is what the shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, said about the plans. Simplifying rules about when young people can work and take breaks will help save the summer job and give employers the confidence they need to hire a young person. Only the Conservatives have the team and the plan to get Britain working again and stand up for summer jobs by slashing unnecessary red tape and scrapping the job destroying parts of the Employment Rights Act. Don't worry kids, I know the Tories tank the economy, gave us a demand unstable employment, gives us on demand unstable employment and oversaw the biggest drop in living standards since the Napoleonic Wars. They're saving the summer jobs now, so why not forget the 14 years of mismanagement? Banska, what do you make about the skew in terms of welfare coverage towards specifically targeting young people? And is there any party that actually has a comprehensive plan that speaks to young people rather than reviving the boomeracy? >> Boomer communism seems to be the flavor certainly on the right. Right. I mean we were talking earlier about this idea that when sort of like reform started making inroads. There was this concept of like generation right you know maybe an emergence after a long period of generation left this emergence of maybe like you know young men predominantly who would be voting for reform who' be courted by them perhaps because they were more socially conservative and that simply hasn't materialized and it never existed in the first place. Yeah, like it's a myth, right? You know, lots of column inches about it, but it never really kind of materialized in quite that that same way, right? You know, and and that's not because there aren't men who are socially conservative or young men who, you know, find perhaps some of the uh anti-migration sentiment appealing, but I just think there isn't a material reason for them personally to to vote for reform or to vote for the right in general. You know, there was a point at which in sort of 2024, if you look back at the the 2024 reform manifesto, I believe they called it a contract rather than a manifesto. And they had a few points in there. It wasn't loads, but they had a few points in there where they were trying to appeal to younger people, you know, and that they talked about, for example, a policy of lowering interest rates on tuition fees, for example. So, recognizing that there was a bit of a burden uh on younger people with regards to to that. And soon enough, I think once they started getting traction, once they started building up more of a base and and and attracting, I suppose, more exory voters, they they kind of quietly abandoned that stuff and and then the framing became very different and it was all about, you know, young people are being too lazy. Get them back in the office. You know, they're on benefits. They've all got all these, you know, mental health issues that aren't really mental health issues and that needs to change. And and so there was no there was nothing really that they were they were kind of giving a young people. And and this was something that even Rbert Low, you know, whose politics of course I do not endorse, you know, he he noted that there was a gap on on the right as well where he said, I think he actually said at one point, I see why young people are voting want to vote for Dalansky's Green Party because they they talk in a way that is appealing and actually appeals to young people's material circumstances. um you know on the on the left of things I suppose with the Labour party Andy Bernham is making young people a kind of cornerstone it seems of his his policym which is really interesting and feels quite strange because I don't know if I've ever lived through a period of time where that was a thing um a part of me almost doesn't know how to react to it like oh this is this is strange um and and there are some things about it which are good you know he's talking about having more jobs for young people um create job more job creation for young people that type of stuff potentially subsidizing you know employers so they can you know financially perhaps look at hiring more more young people as well and and that's all great. Um but at the same time, I think there are also bigger issues going on than just merely kind of like a labor shortage or a labor crisis, right? Um you know, young people's well-being, I think, is is also a real problem. And that starts much much earlier, right, than before you're at the age where you're starting to look for a job. So, this idea of just simply kind of creating more jobs, chucking them off the welfare, and then that will kind of fix the the so-called neat crisis, I think, is maybe a bit limited, right? You know, there was a really good article in I think it was the London Review of Books um where they were looking at at some of this and and they said that there was a considerable number of of young people who were regarded as neats um who were not actively looking for work and not out of a a laziness or or because you know they they just want to be on benefits. They weren't claiming welfare either, but because they they just weren't active. They weren't trying to participate almost in a sense in in society really. And so I think a lot of that is about on the kind of pathway that young people go through and the transitions young people go through thinking about what's happening much much earlier. You know what's happening in schools uh the pressure that young people are under the material conditions families you know being a child growing up in a family where you know having a home and having a roof over your head is becoming increasingly difficult. These things all massively impact your ability once you're you know 18 19 looking for a job or looking to get into education training. these things all massively impact and I think warp your ability to be able to then participate more in these things. So it would be nice to have a government who who that is also willing to look at that whole pathway that young people are going through and all the transitions and really try and do do that kind of holistic work of of the many different multifaceted factors I think that are impacting young people's uh ability to participate in life and that are really creating this this neat crisis. And another problem as well is that in terms of the retail policy like it it's it genuinely feels like these people are telling young people not to vote for them, right? They have you cultural reactionary values that young people just do not gel with. All the statistics show that this is the case, right? The whilst I think there are probably some young people who are at least somewhat kind of compelled by like anti-migration rhetoric like the youth in this country is very diverse that ever stretches into outright racism or even implied racism. It puts everybody off, right? And on top of this, when you look at, for example, their approach to planning, their approach to housing, their approach to public spending, for example, like they don't support nationalization, which all of the young people in this country do, or the vast majority of the young people in this country do, no matter which party they vote for, even Tory voters want nationalization, but they block housing development. They continue to want to support landlordism and allowing them to continue to have more power and opposing any kind of legislation to take away the power of landlords again because those landlords are the most likely going to be either the corporations who have always been supported by the rightwing or indeed the older generations who got onto the mortgage boom of the 2000s or indeed who got cheap rates in the 2010s when we're in the liquidity trap. So there are so many vested interests both in terms of pensioner spending in and things like the triple lock for example in terms of the way in which the housing having turned into a commodity having been provided in terms of home ownership in such huge amounts to the older generations and been moved away from young people because you can't have both, right? You can't have a continually appreciating housing sector and an affordable and available housing sector for new buyers to get into. Those things are pulling each other apart. And they know they can't put old people into negative equity. They know they can't reduce the people's house prices who want to sell it to go and pay for the adult social care that they refuse to provide because they want to, you know, slash access. Reform councils are cutting access to social care around the country. And so all they can do is continue to enable the boom of the gerontocracy and push house prices up, shovel even more spending into pensions when again the pensions are the biggest part of the welfare bill that is rising. Again, I'm not I don't want to scrap the state pension or cut the state pension or means test the state pension. I just want to not have the state pension grow bigger than the economy and grow bigger than wages because that isn't that's not an effective use of expenditure. And I think fundamentally it's unfair to the working people who ensure the productive capacity is there to afford the triple lock, right? I don't want to cut it or anything. I want to keep it at least at the current rate it is and then increase it with wages is my is my proposition here. But all of the vested interests in outside of like capitalist vested interests electorally side with the older generations and has done for a very long time. And the current generation of young people who's growing up in this country, they're pretty angry that they I mean I saw Kem Baitnock on George Osborne's podcast of all things talking about like how reform is grievance politics and the Greens are grievance politics on the populist left and right. Like young people have a legitimate grievance. legitimate grievance in this country and the social contract has been wrestled and it's not because of disabled people. It's because of politicians taking the easy way out and pandering to a giant cohort of older people. Again, not that saying that having a welfare state for older people is bad. Clearly, I support it. I don't want to cut it. But housing especially and the narrative about how they talk about young people, they they literally talk about young people like the dirt in their shoe >> is is is going to leads to a further consolidation of the vote amongst young people amongst the left and that cohort is growing. >> Yeah. And when you think about if you take about yourself back to the 1980s and you think about the kind of leeway that Margaret Thatcher has at sort of the the start of neoliberalism, she's got a bit of leeway to to do things where she kind of can reward people who are not very well off. you can do the whole selling off of council houses for example, you know, terrible policy of course, but it's it's a policy that provides real dividends in the moment, certainly in the 1980s, electorally for her, you know, and and you know, quite a lot of younger people voted for Margaret Thatcher, right? You know, they voted for her because she was able to kind of provide something for them materially. If we fast forward to now, you know, 2026, you know, there isn't really any of that stuff to be able to give to younger people anymore, as you said, right? And so the the the class politics and the class war that I think neoliberalism has always been waging on people is now very starkly along age lines as well. And I think your age is now becoming, you know, almost an identity group that means it kind of is synonymous with with your class. >> I mean it's an interesting thing, right? In so far as when you break down how people vote ideologically, the class divide is broken down. Whereas previously working-class people voted left and the more upper class people voted right and it was a kind of a pushpull over the middle class center to be able to win general elections that has flipped now and now the biggest ideological derivative is age and young people vote left and older people vote right that's that's completely changed if you map ABC1 in terms of like the kind of choppy NRS social grid I don't really believe in it but it's a reasonable kind of appropriation there uh against C2DE and then you market it like age versus left or right, they overlap. There's no difference between the two as once you control once you control for age and then you plot it. So it shows that the biggest divider between whether or not you're leftwing or rightwing is age. But controversially, there is still a definition between populist and establishment which is class linked. Whereas if you actually take these two left and right blocks worth of voters and you map them by whether they're financially secure or whether they are financially insecure, the financially insecure people go for the populist options which is reform and the Greens and the financially secure ones go for labor to live them >> regardless of age. regardless of age. Yeah. Although I mean although within those cohorts so the older ones are mostly voting rightwing and out of that rightwing cohort there's a reform voter precarious block and a Tory voter who are establishment block and then amongst young people there's a broader kind of green populist financially insecure block and a labor establishment financially secure block. >> Fascinating. You hold so much information and data in your head. I'm always very impressed by that. When you're a YouTuber got plenty of time to look through to look through all the different articles. It's a blessing. It's a blessing really. Uh anyway, thank you very much for joining me tonight. important show tonight. >> Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. >> My absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. And thank you as always everyone for tuning in at home as well. Come back tomorrow for another live stream from 6 p.m. For now, you've been watching Novara Media. Good night.