Zack Polanski Wants Keir Starmer's Old Seat

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, Green Party leader Zach Palansky has announced his plan to stand in Kami's vacated city of Hob and St. Pancress. Bond markets already punishing Andy Bernham. Navarus Harriet Williamson reports from a Palestine action press conference. And CBS joins Fox News in mounting Islamic attacks on US Democratic Party nominee for Senate in Michigan, Abdul Eled. I'm Helena aka no Justice MTG. And tonight for ladies night, I'm joined by Dalia Gabriel. How are you doing? >> I'm doing very well. I've just come off a disgustingly sweltering Jubilee line, so forgive me if I'm looking a little shiny um today, but it's lovely to be here. >> It's nice to the the studio to be less warm than the tube for once, you know. >> Unprecedented. >> Unprecedented. Now, before we get started, just want to point you towards the next Downstream IRL on the 21st of this month in London. Aaron Bastani will kick things off speaking to Darren McGarthy, aka Scottish rapper Loki, an Orwell Prizewinning writer and author. Then Ash Saka will sit down with Katherine Louu who is a cultural theorist professor and author in her new book traumatized the new politics of public suffering. Lou argues that at class politics has declined the language of psychology has stepped in to explain problems rooted in capitalism giving way to what she calls the gentrification of pain. It'll be earth in Hackne on the 21st of September and the link for tickets is down in the description box below. A year and a day ago, the political fortunes of the Green Party of England and Wales seemed to be permanently altered when self-styled eco-op populist Zack Palansky was elected as leader. It took him just a month for him to take the party to 15% in the polls, more than double their results of the 2024 general election. And it took him only 6 months to treble the party's membership from 60,000 to 200,000. The meteoric rise of the party reached its peak in March with their shock victory in the Gorton and Denton bi-election adding their record fifth MP in Hannah Spencer. Now whilst the Greens did have their best local election results ever in May of this year, the wind has certainly been taken out of their sales somewhat in the last couple of months. some unfortunate social media gaffs and the rise of Andy Bernham has arrested the momentum of the Greens which in March looked unstoppable when Kamu was adenoidedly proclaiming his intention to be PM for years to come only to immediately U-turn as always and stepped down to make way for Andy Bernham. It seems the Greens have settled at around 13% in the poll since Andy Bernham took over as prime minister and won back some Labour voters who deserted the party under K star taking Labour back into the lead with most pollsters. But it turns out that Starmer may be the gift that keeps on giving for the Greens as he announced this week he would be standing down as the MP for Hoben and St. Pancress. Of course, after pledging not to do so earlier this year. This means there'll be a bi-election for the MTC right in the kind of metropolitan labor heartland that the Green saw large gains at in the local elections. There was much speculation as to whether Zach Palansky would run for candidate selection given he had stated before he would want to run in a London seat specifically. Such speculation, however, was put to rest today when Palansky gave an exclusive interview to the Camden New Journal in which he stated his intention to ask party members to support him to be the candidate. In that interview, he elaborated on his reasons for standing with the journal reporting this. I have lived and worked in this community over many years. I know it well and love it. It represents so many of the things that make London so special. I am so excited by the prospect of representing this place in Parliament. Hobel and St. Pancress has everything that's the best of our country and so much potential. But for too long now, it's been held back by governments who have failed to make the changes to improve people's lives. We know that the Greens can win here. And by electing me, voters will have someone who will always fight their corner, never scared of big donors or the party whip. Too often, Labour stood up for corporations in big money, and I will stand up for people struggling to pay their bills. There had been speculation that local left-wing activist Andrew Feinstein, who came second to Star in the 20 2020 in the 2024 election, could run alongside his local group in the Camden People's Alliance. In response to Zach's announcement, Feinstein said this on Twitter. Personally, I welcome this news and believe Zach will be an excellent candidate. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to stand this time round. The Camden's People Alliance, the community group created out of my campaign against Starama, will meet next week to formally decide our position. This is a crucial time for progressives in Camden and across the country to be united. The reaction to Zach's announcement was certainly very mixed. Some excited, other others more apprehensive. This was Curtis Dailyy from Turnleft Media. Zack Palinsky confirms he's running in Hobon and St. Pancress. If he wins, it'll be a huge upset. Not only that, but that means he's effectively replaced the prime minister twice or at the very least replaced Kier Stalmer twice in that case, which again would be very funny to end his career as prime minister and then immediately kind of jump into his grave as soon as he stepped down as being an MP as well, which again there would be no Andy Bernan without the Green Party being there for the Labor vote to desert Labor to a party offering something significantly more leftwing than Star was doing. So what better way to celebrate that by replacing KOM in his constituency with somebody who's you know an actual progressive. Now Ethan shown from open democracy had words of caution for the Green Party leader saying this not convinced Zack Palansky should stand. Seems to me the benefits of winning are basically the same whoever the candidate is. But the consequences of losing are far worse if he stands. Plus Labour will find more to throw at it if he's the candidate. Interested in other takes. I think the difference of course is that Zach Palansky would be able to increase the level to which that people would be engaged with the bi-election. It's not necessarily as much of a kind of Green Party demographic in this particular seat as somewhere like Lewisham or Hackne for example. It's very more affluent I guess in terms of the people that live there, more kind of professionals who live in that particular constituency. And it voted for Labor at the local elections, although only slightly. It is of course a London seat like any other, but it's just not quite as fertile ground for the Greens as places like Hackne would be, which I believe is Zach Plansky's probably preferred seat in London. Although I do agree with the idea that if he does lose, there's a lot to lose. There's a lot to lose by standing and failing and then suddenly all of the wind that we thought was taken out, the sales would be confirmed. Although if it's close, you know, Nigel Faraj has stood lots of times and it's never stopped him. Now, Labour Party MP Emily Thornbury didn't mince her words when responding to the news, and she said this. I'm not usually one to defend Zack Palansky, but the idea he doesn't have at least one single connection to Camplin is just nonsense. Look, here he is standing for the council there in 2015 as a Lib Dem during the austerity coalition. Uh, no one asked Emily what became of Paul Tomlinson, the Labour candidate who won. He was purged by Star's polit bureau in 2021 over a disagreement in local planning decisions, having served the party loyally since his election in 2015. Local residents described his deselection as a sham, which is extra ironic given that Kiama himself rejected the party line on HS2 in that very same constituency. The Labour Party's candidate selection will also be made soon, too. The front runner for selection is Camden Council leader Sagal Abdiwali. She was a child refugee who came to the UK from Somalia and is said to be a close ally of the former prime minister. Now, whilst it would seemly odd, at least to me, for a former refugee to be an ally of someone who helped enact draconian anti-Islam law while prime minister, the right-wing haven't even waited a day before starting the refugee attacks against her. Reform UK home affairs spokesperson Sia Ysef posted this absolutely wild tweet. the front runner being forced on the people of Hoben by Labour to replace the former prime minister Karmi in our parliament was born in Somalia. Do you understand what's happening? I mean like he's not even trying to just hide the racism. There's no dog whistle. There's no attempt to make it have any kind of plausible deniability. Just she's from Somalia and that's bad apparently. Uh back to the main story I guess. Dalia, what's your opinion on Zack running in this particular seat? Good idea? Bad idea? a gamble worth taking perhaps. >> I mean, I think it makes uh complete sense. It holds a lot of symbolic value to uh to go to to to Karma's seat to go for the seat of a of a former Labor party leader. The symbolic value is obviously it's kind of making a statement of, you know, we are replacing Labor. You know, in a two-party system, uh we represent the left, you know, we represent the left of center. we represent the left more broadly. And so there is a kind of symbolism to it that if it does pay off will be effective and will be strong and will be galvanizing. But almost precisely because of that symbolism, it also is a risk. I mean, I don't think it's a risk because of that tweet that said, you know, he's going to be subject to Labour Party attacks. And it's like, hello, welcome to politics. Like, if you're a politician, you have to be able to withstand attacks from the opposing party. Like that's what it means to be an MP. If you don't want to do that, then you shouldn't be an MP. But the where the risk lies is that, you know, it's a real it's one of the most one of the first tests that we're going to see of whether or not the Green surge was simply because of K Star's specific unpopity. You know, this is the first test that is happening of Green Party politics. And it's a big gamble because it's the leader of the party in a postst Labor party. And it we're really going to find out in a sense, you know, was that green surge symptomatic of a more long-term harder to reverse breaching of trust uh with the Labour Party or was it about Starmmer specifically? And you know, Hobbit in St. pancreas is not necessarily a die in the wool left of labor seat. You know, it's not like Hackne where Dian Abbott is where you know it they for I mean Dian Abbott has been the MP for a very long time there. So there has been a routine returning of an MP who is to the left of the the main Labour party line. So that's where the gamble lies. I think I think because it is so symbolic because it is Star's former seat, the payoff the payoff could be really high, but also I could see how it could be a little bit of a of knocking the wind out of the sales and a way for the nar for the media to narrativize the green surge is basically being quelled or cooled by by Burnham. When it comes to um the Labour front runner, I mean, as you say, you know, she is quite a staunch ally it seems of Kier Starmmer. I don't want to speculate too much beyond that because we've not heard from her that much, but she was, you know, chair of his CLP. Um, and you would hope that being a refugee, she would not be so willing to sell out migrants and refugees as the way that her former boss did. Although unfortunately, we have seen ethnic minority politicians proudly promote policies that they have even admitted that their own parents would not be allowed in the country under them. I do think that from a principled perspective, it is important that Zach Palansky counters and defends her against the racist attacks. I think, you know, you can you can attack someone politically, you can you can question her record, you can question her uh closeness with with K Star, but I think when the attacks start to get, you know, she's Somalian, she's a refugee, great replacement, all of this kind of stuff, I I would want to see the Green Party, the leader, Zach Palansky, say, "No, we're not doing that. I'm not I'm not co-signing that." I think that would be very powerful and very important um to see to see Zach doing. >> I think you're 100% correct. You're 100% correct there. And there's also kind of another dynamic here as well. Obviously, her being a Star ally like the whole CLP backed K star to be the candidate for so long and we now basically have like most of the confirmation that we need to be able to speculate with pretty good accuracy potentially that his entire time as the MP for that constituency was for his own career advancement. like you get in because you're parachuted in to be Ed Milliban's attorney general. They assumed he'd win the general election in 2015. Then he's like the shadow Brexit secretary whilst we all know what he was doing with Labour together behind the scenes from 2017 to 2020. So wasn't even like necessarily locked into the Labour Party's success as a political force or what was necessarily the best for that particular constituency. here was what was good for K, what was good for the labor right, what was good for people on his faction of the party and then as soon as it is time for him to no longer be top dog to no longer be the big camera big man on campus he's just like I'm Scarprint of course having pledged not to do so in true Kama fashion one lush broken pledge for the road that's a good campaigning point right Zach Balansky specifically said I want to be an MP I want to represent people I want to be um in London which is where I live so it was never a parachute it was never anything like that it was always just I want to represent the community and the city that I come from and >> and also and also you know I'm not just someone who's from here I've been involved actively in campaigning and in sort of advocating for this constituency even when there was no I had no political career to speak of. I was doing it because those are my principles. And this is why again I think that condemning the racist attacks is important because the thing that makes Zach so you know that makes Zach endearing is that authenticity and is that sense that this is someone who fights for what he thinks is right which is the polar opposite of of K star whereas you could argue you know that the Labour front runner was co-signing a lot of what Karma was doing. Now, you could say, well, you know, she's local to the area and the Labour Party was the party in power, but I think it would be fair to ask her to answer for um in a sense to to say, you know, what parts of that record does she stand with and what parts of that record would she want to change because as you've mentioned, Helena, for for K Dharma, his work in the constituency was really just about a a another kind of stepping stone in his career. Whereas for this young woman, I'm not sure if it is. You know, she's from the area. She's been involved locally for a long time. >> She's the current council leader, right? Like you can't claim that she's not been in the for, you know, the interests of the constituency, the interests of the people of the burough of Camden because she's been there doing the job like longtime counselor and then becoming the leader and putting the effort in to be a local representative and whether we disagree or agree on politics, you have to recommend. You have to commend that. >> Yeah. And I mean, isn't it nice to have a high-profile con, you know, MP battle that is between two people who actually are from the area? It's so rare these days in British politics, right? >> Literally, literally, there's no there's no Matt Goodwin's kind of standing. I We don't know what reforms candidate is going to be in here. So, there may yet be another Matt Goodwin style parachuted candidate, you know, but we shall see. We shall see. The US bond market is in turmoil and one person in particular is very unhappy about it. Do you direct Secretary Vesson to intervene in the bond market with your idea? >> Not at all. No. He's a very capable man. He wanted to do it. He's very good at it. He is a good touch, very good natural touch for the bonds and interest and he did that. Yeah. >> The yields have come back up since then. Have you talked TO HIM ABOUT ANOTHER TYPE of intervention? Is that something he will? >> We have many types of intervention. That's one. The ultimate intervention is our military. And uh if we have to use that, we will. Yeah. That was US President Donald Trump there suggesting he might intervene militarily in the bond market which has been a subject of great headache for him over the past couple of weeks. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson has overseen the US national debt reach $40 trillion a number he insists the country can grow out of. Bond vigilantes on the other hand aren't so sure. However, the yield on longdated US treasuries is at his highest for 22 years increasing how much the US pays in interest on the national debt. Bessent made an extraordinary intervention to calm the market last week. The long and short of it is that he used the Treasury to buy longdated bonds by issuing new short-dated bonds. But that hasn't stopped the yields rising at all, it seems. As the old saying goes too, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold and the yield increases spread to the rest of the global north, including us here at home. As you can see here, this trend has affected the UK, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy, as well as many others, with the UK the worst off of the lot. But why has all of this happened at the same time? I'm joined now by economist James Midway from the Macro podcast to help me untangle what's going on. So if we start off with the the US bond yields here, James, welcome to the show. Uh why are Treasury yields going up? >> It's actually been going on for quite some time. This is going back over the last probably three, four years now to just coming out of the pandemic where you've seen uh yields, in other words, the rate of interest that governments have to pay on their borrowing. That's what a government bond is. It's how governments typically borrow money has been creeping up and sometimes shooting up uh across the developed world. So like you say, the US, France, Germany, Italy, even Switzerland has been somewhat affected by this. So what that tells you is there's a common set of problems here. uh one of them is that the fact that governments have had the succession of crises which have been very expensive which have created loads new borrowing and debt for them. So the financial crisis I mean nearly 20 years ago COVID lots of borrowing lots more debt that's one bit of it that's rattling around in in institutions and bond traders heads. The other one is a fear of inflation in particular that if inflation goes up and you've got a government bond and you're well whichever institution you might be particularly hedge funds at the minute I suppose um you would be sitting there going well that inflation is going to eat away at the amount of interest I'm going to be getting on that bond so I'm going to want more interest to hold that bond. So if you're worried about inflation or thinking inflation is going to go up and if you look at the Iran war and you think about El Nino and you think about climate change in general inflation is going to go up. So you want more for your your bonds. Um these are the two sort of big kind of historic factors that that are coming in there and no one can really escape that. That's the really really sort of fundamentals of what's we're looking at at the minute. >> So you're saying that it's more of the kind of exogenous factors rather than any kind of specific bad economic management or any kind of kind of proflegate fiscal policy that's led to the situation. >> Well, there's a degree to which Britain has been particularly badly managed. So we're worse affected by a lot of this stuff. There's there's a particular premium that people trading bonds will attach to Britain now because basically we've just had not very good governments for a long period of time and done a load of stupid stuff that materially has made people in Britain uh poorer than they would have been otherwise. But because it's happening everywhere, although everyone's done kind of the same things, it's not really about what governments are doing. What you got to look at here is stepping back a bit and start to think about well this is the end of for the last few years the end of really a 30-year period where you had interest rates typically going down across the world. By the way, if you want a really long view there's a hilarious but rather brilliant in many ways Bank of England paper says this is going back to 800 years. It's going back to the 1200s and this decline and long-term interest rates. So if you take a really long view you can see this happening and we're at a bit of a turning point here. This is like Adam Tus the economic historian has been arguing and I'd agree with him. This is a change in the regime. This is a change in how the world monetary system operates. This includes things like is the US going to continue to be the fundamental monetary power on the planet from this point onwards. Now, you know, one way of reading what's happening is that increasingly there's a little bit of doubt creeping in to money markets about the status of the US itself, which is why things like this $40 trillion debt matter so much. It's kind of almost psychological that it has this impact and forcing you to think about that is an extraordinary amount of money. Can the US ever really repay it in the sense that bond markets will understand? So this is a really big turning point and it's affecting everyone and basically the tools that governments typically have like hey why don't we ask the central bank to put up interest rates to deal with inflation don't help at all almost certainly in fact do make the situation worse for pretty much everyone. >> And what was Scott Bessant doing the other week? What was his plan? What was his strategy do you think in this this kind of this buyback program for longdated bonds? >> Well the strategy is in in two parts. One is to basically say look the US government can if it wants just get an awful lot of dollars. I mean obviously fundamentally in the end it's not necessarily where dollars come from but it can really issue a lot of them. So one part of the things they were talking about was uh using the US government's general account it's called which if you like is the bank account everyone pays their taxes into and saying oh we'll just spend some of that. It's got about trillion dollars in it at any given point in time. Spencer and that to buy some bonds to force up the price, which means because bonds are a bit weird, forcing down the interest rate uh that the US government faces on these long-term bonds. All that he was doing was trying to get that interest rate back down. Partly by actually going out and buying up a load of these things. So, you're changing the market itself, and partly by just saying loudly and clearly, we're the US government. We're the most powerful thing in the planet. you bond markets, you bond traders can't possibly stand up to us and we're going to crush you by using our power to just create more and more money dollars ultimately. Now, what's actually happened, you might notice, is that yeah, sure, it's made a bit of difference to US bond rates, but not that much. So, you're getting to this point where suddenly even the US government isn't getting on top of it with its kind of usual set of monetary policy tools. >> Yeah, quite funny considering Scott Besson's career was at Soros Fund Management. quite literally betting against governments in favor of money markets. I mean he's one of the people responsible for our black Wednesday was the kind of the money traders for for George Soros which I think is very interesting. Um on the subject of this country now I obviously understand that when treasury yields go up in the United States obviously loads of governments hold treasury so it affects the kind of the bond markets across the world you know just by value of the US Treasury yield going up but obviously we are the highest obvious you mentioned this kind of this what's been described as like the premium of just we keep electing bad people doing bad things are there any other structural reasons why our yields are so much higher than everybody else's >> you've kind of put your your your finger on on part of it. I mean, look, the first bit is the way that the bond markets work is the US treasuries are basically setting a floor. It's called supposed to be the risk-free asset. So, everything else is going to be a bit more expensive than that. That's how people trading these things are thinking about the world. US treasuries go up pretty much automatically. Everybody else is going to get affected more or less by that. What's happened here is absolutely one thing we both just talked about just bad management just like stupid decisions. I mean Liz Truss is the most graphic but actually bond rates now last time I looked are higher than when Liz Truss was in charge. So you know it's not just a Liz Truss issue that we're looking at here. The other one is low growth relative to other um big developed economies over a really long period of time. Now um the issue with growth is that if you're a bond trader then a country is growing. It means they're going to get more taxes coming in. You know you're going to get your bonds back. It's going to make a decent return. The currency is going to be stable. All of that sort of stuff. inflation probably isn't going shooting off. You know, you're going to get your money back in the future. So, you look out for growth. It's an indicator of something that if you're trading the market, you would look out for. So, that's kind of uh one of the bits that that's that's correct in there, just economic failure over a long period of time. Some it's a bit more technical. You get into a world where some of the things that the people managing British debt, the debt management office made decisions that aren't necessarily always the best for like dealing with the long-term cost of borrowing kit. Without getting too technical about it, there are different ways to manage how the government makes loans and borrows money. And a lot of what we've been doing here is set up for a world in which interest rates are kind of low, markets are very liquid. In other words, lots of money flowing around all the time. Not really built for a world where you have lots of shocks, lots of inflation coming in, lots of strange things happening. So, we need to adjust how our big institutions work is part of the problem. Um, and when it comes to how this changes public policy moving forward, now a lot of people have been saying this is going to lead to like a sovereign debt crisis, the IMF are going to have to get involved. Is it actually the case that there could be a sovereign debt problem for loads of countries in the global north or is this just an adjustment to a new normal where maybe growth will be lower, interest payments on debt will be lower, but broadly they have to get used to a world in which governments are more fiscally constrained. There is, look, most governments in history have defaulted on their debt at some point in time. Um, most governments at some point said we can't pay all part of our debt, right? This is just something that's happened. There are very few that that haven't done that. The United States is one of them. Japan, from memory, is another. There's a few. Britain actually isn't. There was a kind of strange arrangement in the 1920s, 1930s where we kind of cancel a bit of our debt. So, it actually has happened a lot in the past and it could happen a lot in the future. there is a state of the world where sovereign default or things that involve government saying well we're just not going to pay part of the interest due in this debt. I mean there have been proposals by people close to Trump. Steven Miran who was on still is on the Council of Economic Advisers suggesting the US ought to just say we're not going to pay part of our debt uh because we're providing all this military support to the rest of the world so they kind of owe us you know. So, so this argument is starting to creep in that perhaps government just sort of to kind of cancel some of the debt or readjust some of it. It could happen if we don't suddenly see a massive return to growth, which I don't believe there's stuff really bad about AI. I don't think that's going to happen. Um, you get into a world where suddenly governments just lumbering around with all this debt. The interest is rising and rising. Something's got to give. So, potentially what you see in this potentially sees some sort of fairly major crisis, but how that breaks out is not something you can argue at this point in time. And of course, the system can continue quite happily for as long as people vaguely believe it's probably going to be all right. If if Scott Besson is there going, I'm just going to issue even more dollars and buy up even more bonds and that's just going to keep happening. I have literally bottomless pockets, then maybe it won't ever quite turn up, but you're kind of just stacking up problems at some point in the future. That's the world we're now living in. So yes, there is a risk of that sort of crisis, potentially really fundamental crisis, but we're not there yet. The way to think about this is we're in a kind of turning point transition. Typically, these will involve crisis of some sort. What form that crisis takes is not really set by what's happening in the last few weeks or days. >> 100% 100%. One last question as well. I noticed that there's one big country that's not seen their bonds increase in terms of the yield and their yield curve has gone down and that's China. Any idea why that might be? Well, you can you can sort of hazard some guesses about the contrast in relative economic performances standing in the world over the last few years. The other bit of course is that China maintains all sorts of controls uh over how money flows in and out of the country. It has a much much differently regulated financial and banking system in quite radically different uh from the the sort of globalized really liberalized system that you have typically in the western economies. The big story there of course is that it doesn't take a lot to start to think about actually how is the world going you know what has happened in the last now 15 odd years really since the financial crisis which is the country that's demonstrating clear technological leadership across a whole load of things that's going to be important in the future which is the country which is still posting really impressive rates of growth you know even above us is not doing badly in the developed world but certainly above the US and you get an answer that lands in a kind of China direction that's kind of the story there it's all part of this transition it's part of a shift in the balance of power in the world. >> Well, thank you very much for joining me today, James. Much appreciated. >> Thank you. >> In 2024, six Palestine action activists entered an Elbert Weapons facility in Filton near Bristol where they smashed up military drones and other equipment intended, they said, for Gaza. Earlier this year, after more than a year in prison and one failed trial, which resulted in multiple acquitt several charges, four of them were convicted of criminal damage at the Israel owned site, with one also convicted of grievous bodily harm, though without intent for striking a police officer. Two were cleared of all charges. In that same trial, the four became the first British direct actionists to be sentenced as terrorists after the presiding judge found a terror connection in the criminal damage that they had committed. That possibility had been concealed from the jury when they convicted the four. As a result, all four received much lengthier sentences ranging between 5 and 8 years. Having been sentenced as terrorist, the four are also subject to a very different prison regime from normal prisoners. They will also only be eligible for parole much later than normal prisoners, too, and will spend up to 15 years being subject to reporting requirements after they're released. Meaning they'll need to notify the police of any new device, bank account, address, holiday, or indeed relationship known as the Filton 4, Ellie, Cameo, Charlotte, Fatima, Zanab, Brashwani, and Samuel Corner. They're now seeking to appeal the judge's decision in finding a terror connection. Novaris Harriet Williamson intended the announcement of that appeal, and she put this question to lawyer Simonas. Can you explain in simple language what the grounds are for the appeal and give an opinion on how likely you think it is to succeed? >> The the the judge um applied the wrong test for serious damage to property. So this was not serious property damage um and therefore didn't come within um within section one of the terrorism act. Um secondly that it wasn't carried out and there was no evidence that it was carried out with the intention of influencing the government. um or to intimidate the public or a section of the public. So that element of the terrorism act wasn't met. Um and um thirdly that um it was a humanitarian cause rather than a political ideological one. Um those those really are the arguments that are are central to the appeal. >> After the press conference, Harriet caught up with Simon again for more detail. >> Simon, you've told us that you think you have really strong grounds for appeal here for the Filton Paw. Can you explain a bit to the Navara live audience about why that is? >> The center of our appeal um is the operation of the terrorism act itself and what amounts to serious damage to property. The only way of understanding that is to go back and look at the parliamentary debates that took place in 1999 when um the then Labor government introduced the terrorism act. Terrorism was by by its nature involved serious violence. um that um it was intended to create a climate of extreme fear and to undermine the foundations of government. Um that sets the bar very high >> and it's very difficult to argue in this case that any of those three conditions were met. >> Yes, that's what we're saying. They were acquitted of offenses of violence. Um and they were sentenced only for uh for criminal damage. So, how did we get from these three conditions that Jack Straw laid out in Parliament in the early 2000s to here? >> Well, the act itself doesn't say any of that and it leaves what the word serious means as being something that's open um for debate. >> Why is it so broad? Why is this term not really clearly defined? >> Um because Parliament didn't define it clearly enough um in the legislation. What that what that then creates is um a problem of interpretation. At least that's what we say. We don't have difficulty in determining what's really serious injury is. It affects how you know people's ability to function, the amount of pain they suffer, etc. All those sorts of things. It's quite possible to determine. Once you introduce the concept of seriousness to property damage, that immediately invites the question of whether that's quantitative because that's how most people understand property damage. people who immediately think, well, what did it cost to actually repair the damage? >> But we are now in a situation where all crimes that are punishable by 2 years or more in prison can have this terror connection applied to them. And I'm not sure that's something that many people knew before this case was made public. >> Yeah, that's that's that's quite right. Um, and this is an enormous change to the operation of our criminal law that happened without very much debate and I and in my view without any real proper understanding of where it could lead. >> Another speaker on the panel was Dr. James Smith, an emergency doctor who has worked in Gaza and a lecture on humanitarian policy. He gave this harrowing testimony of Israel's use of drones against Palestinian civilians. I should say that it's to our collective shame that we've innovated so creatively and so barbarically in the means to maim and kill. Back in June on the day of sentencing uh in Wulitch, I wrote to a Palestinian healthcare worker that I worked with for two months back in 2024. Uh, and I asked them I I told them about the ongoing cases and I asked them if they could remember roughly how many patients we'd seen or that they have seen since that were injured specifically by Israeli quadcopters. They responded, "It's uncountable. It happens every day and all the time." In June of this year, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry released a 94page report that meticulously documents Israel's deliberate targeting in Gaza of Palestinian children specifically. That report is publicly available in full and Israel's use of quadcopters features heavily throughout it. One of several utterly horrific cases that have been investigated by the commission documents the case of a 10-day old baby boy who was being breastfed by his mother inside their tent in Nuserat in central Gaza on the 12th of April 2024. The baby was shot in the head. Miraculously, both the baby and the mother survived, but the infant has been left with permanent lifealtering disability and seizures. The baby was shot by an Israeli quadcopter. The inquiry goes on, and I quote, "Now, the commission concluded on reasonable grounds that the bullet was fired from a sniper rifle mounted on a quadcopter. Considering that the shooting occurred in broad daylight, the commission concludes that the quadcopter controller would have been able to see inside the attempt and assess that the target was a mother and a baby." After the press conference, Harriet spoke to the mothers of two of the Filton four. This is Emma Cameo and Suka Rashwani, whose daughters Leona and Fatima are currently serving time. Do >> do you both want to just start off by telling us a little bit about what your daughters are experiencing in prison? >> Isolation is the name of the game. You know, that's what they've they've isolated them from each other when they were in the same prisons. They've isolated them um from other prisoners. They have their own cell. They don't share. before uh they were sentenced, anyone in the world could write to them and any number of people. I mean, they didn't always get them down to prison policy for whatever reason, but that they were sent letters from anyone and anybody. Anyone could visit them as long as they'd been previously vetted by the prison. Um, and then they were allowed 20 people that they could call. Now the 20 vetted are the only ones that can write, the only ones that she can call, and the only ones that visit. Fatma Zanab has spent 10% of her life. She spent two years in prison already um waiting for her trial and then after sentencing to date. Um and this is all because of the terror connection that's been applied to their case. If it wasn't for the terror connection that has been applied on their sentence, she would have been out on time served. Um but because of the terror connection it's just made everything so much more worse for all of them and for Fatma Zanab and even in prison things are so much more difficult because of that disconnected from the world disconnected from the family disconnected from the support network and then even in terms of what you know what it means for her after release it's not like it's the end of it she's looking at 15 years of notification and just a simple um mistake on her part could land her back in prison. It has lifelong consequences for her. And that's why it is so much more important right now that this appeal gets challenged successfully. Once it is applied successfully, it is something that's going to become the norm and this is what people need to wake up to and be aware of. seems pretty cold given the kind of people that potentially could be let out of prison in Labour's prisoner release scheme and yet you know the level to which that they will make an example of people using this terror connection uh it's it's difficult to hear now let's go back to that interview >> can you tell us a little bit about how you feel about the the appeal and how you feel about the action that your daughters took >> I am incredibly proud of Fatma Zena for standing up to her morals, to her conscience. I am extremely proud of her. I am to be honest, the experience that we've had with the law doesn't fill me with a lot of hope. Um, but we do have strong legal arguments. We do have a strong legal team who are really passionate. They've gone all out for Fatma Zanab, Ellie, Ly, Sam. They have put in their very best. We've got strong legal arguments. So, I am hopeful um in that sense. But in terms of how we've been treated over the past two years, um how the legal system has shown itself to be corrupt and how the prosecution, the judge has used, um the law hasn't shown me much justice. So yeah, I'm of two minds here. >> I don't know about you, Emma. >> Well, I I am Anybody that knows me knows that I am the glass is always half full. I can always see the best and I can always be hopeful. But like Zukaina said, um I have I have no hope whatsoever. Ellie's barristister was really excited putting it in saying, you know, we've got a great legal argument and I said, you had a great legal argument from the start and that's no reflection on them. They've done an amazing job. >> We saw when the prescription of Palestine action was upheld um in the courts. We saw how how the judge um sitting on that case made up and rewrote British history when she spoke about the suffragettes. And that makes you think that, you know, they're willing to go to such lengths to rewrite British history to justify themselves. >> I locked myself uh to to parliament in protest and the very and I went I actually went because I was hoping to see my own MP Tanya Antinati from Swansea to look her in the eye. Um but I didn't. But I later found out on socials that she was there. All of the women in MPs, which apparently is now about 40% of parliament are women, were all dressed as suffragettes that day. on that day >> on that re on it. They were there um uh being proud to be women and following the suffragette. >> Daria, important but difficult words to hear. I'm sure you agree. >> Yeah. And I think the the mothers there really summarized it the stakes really brilliantly. You know, I've said this before um but I'll say it again. Terror legislation essentially functions as a carve out, an exception to what are supposed to be universal human rights, settled questions of civil liberty, particularly around uh criminal justice in a liberal democracy. uh terror legislation basically says that for these particular kinds of crime uh we are going to say that these ostensively universal rights do not um apply and this affects a lot of different things. It affects things like indefinite detention as was outlined by the mothers of the prisoners there. It impacts the consequences of prosecution. You know, if you are prosecuted um and convicted on a terror charge, you have a minimum of 10 years of having to do regular police notifications. That is the kind of thing that is only reserved other than terror legislation, it's only really reserved for ch child sex offenses. Um things like habius corpus, things like the kinds of evidence that can be provided in a court, um sentencing limits. So all of these settled questions of civil liberties and universal human rights get scrapped in the context of terror legislation and you can convincingly argue that that exception should not exist and a lot of lawyers do. They argue that you know if a right is not universal then it is not a right. Um but if we are going to have these exceptions, the fact that in the original act and this goes to show that this is in the DNA of this particular kind of legislation in the original act you leave the definition of what kind of crime can fall as part of that exception so broad you are handing authoritarian power to the state on a platter because you are leaving it up to the state to decide who and what can be prosecuted. under these carveouts from normal civil liberties and human rights. Um, and that's why terror law is used around the world um by authoritarian governments to crack down on political opponents, to crack down um on free speech, to to oppress minorities. And the Palestine Action case is so important because it is testing the guard rails of that original act which many civil liberties experts raised deep concern about when it was first passed because this is the first time that a group has been prescribed on the basis of property damage. This is the first time we have seen people being hauled off the street and prosecuted for holding a sign. These are acts that are not widely considered by the public to be terror. You know, especially when the same government that is going after these people as terrorists is offering financial and military and political support to a state whose actions fulfill any definition of terrorism and more. I mean, talk about using violence to try and secure political outcomes. Of course, I'm talking here about the state of Israel. Um and so if precedent is created that says that the the the the definition of a serious crime, the definition of terror can be stretched this widely, we are crossing a threshold that is going to be very very difficult to roll back from. And that's why this case is so unbelievably important because it is going to define what kind of state Britain is over the next 10 20 30 years and what kinds of you know what what the power that the state has >> and there's no there's precious little opposition politically in terms of you know I guess elected members of parliament in a way that there was opposition in the 2000s right remember the Holton Price bi-election when David Davis stood down specifically for what he saw was the erosion of civil liberties and in terms of the counterterrorism act. Is there anything that you're getting from anybody of the supposed libertarians, the people who believe in in individual liberty, especially you know the conservative types always claimed to want to do so and yet >> and and this is why the threshold is very difficult to roll back on because we've now forgotten that that was a controversial thing. we've forgotten that there was an active debate and a and it was controversial within the human rights sector, within the civil liberties sector to pass this act. But now 20 years on, no one no one remembers that. It's seen as completely settled. And so that's where my concern is is that once you pass these thresholds of state power, people it becomes naturalized. People get used to living in in a in a country where a state can do that. And that's really really scary. And again, people from like the liberal side of politics in this country, they point at Trump abusing terror legislation to haul people off the streets and as the basis for a lot of stuff they did with Venezuela and the boats or whether it is um ICE terrorizing communities and they have endless words of condemnation yet radio silence when it comes to the authoritarianism of the government. >> I mean, this is the architecture that Trump is using. We're building it right here. >> Exactly. Theo the supposed lefty party. Now, Navara's Harriet Williamson has also written up a report on the appeals. You can read that article as well as more of Harriet's excellent reporting on Palestine action on our website. Now, that includes this piece called We're the Canary in the Coalmine, which goes into greater detail of the enhanced vetting people have to go through to communicate with the four prisoners. Those links are in the description box down below. It's been a roller coaster year for CBS News, having been subject to a takeover by David Ellison's Paramount in October last year. One of the first things they did was to install Barry Vice as the editor-inchief. Despite her having zero experience in broadcast journalism, she made negative headlines instantly by firing huge numbers of staff, including high-profile correspondent Scott P, as well as rewriting scripts for anchors and cancelling stories that were critical of the Trump regime. With the midterm elections just months away, the American legacy media, including CBS, are going into overdrive to smear candidates that are critical of the US relationship with Israel. And none are more prominent right now than Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El Say. Elsed won the Democratic nomination on a promise to support an immediate US arms embargo on Israel to spend more money at home and openly criticized Israel's genocide in Gaza and land theft in the West Bank. Most polls currently show El Say ahead and so the mainstream media have put their collective thumbs on the scale to make his election against the Apac endorsed Republican nominee Mike Rogers more competitive. Out of all of the bad faith attacks against him, it was CBS that won first prize for the worst post yet. As the nation prepares to mark 25 years since September the 11th, 2001, Abdul El Say, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, may be facing the risk of renewed scrutiny and fresh political attack. Yes, that's right. It's opposed to explicitly linking El Say to 9/11, which must surely have pretty huge justification given how much it looks like it's simply trying to link his Islamic faith to the Salafi jihadists of Alqaaida. Well, surprise surprise, it's just Islamophobia. The only thing that CBS could find was this tweet. Today, I mourn the 3K lives, six hit injuries, and infrastructural devastation in New York City perpetrated ignorantly in the name of my faith. Tomorrow I'll mourn 1 million lives, millions of injuries, and infrastructural devastation in three countries perpetrated ignorantly in the name of my country. Literally zero things incorrect by that statement. Nothing wrong with that statement whatsoever. I mean, he even condemned the fact that people weaponized Islam to commit such acts of terror, thereby trying to deliberately delineate himself away from the ideologies that led to 9/11. So the idea that that is anything other than what it was explicitly him saying that he mourned the victims of terrorism and indeed the victims of the response to 9/11 the form of the war on terror should be and is totally uncontroversial. It's so uncontroversial in fact that even former Republican strategists turned anti-Trump activists Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller could see the racism that was dripping from that post. this headline. Nobody is actually inviting scrutiny of past remarks because of 911. Nobody is doing that. Uh like >> you are they are >> well I thought we wanted mainstream news news to have voice. >> Uh this is like a a fullon invention of two separate things and trying to tie them together. CBS is tying them together and then they're letting the racism fill in the rest. Uh, and it is atrocious. That is like a real And look, sometimes I don't get as torquked as everybody else over Barry Weiss. I'm very torqued about this and and she has been doing all kinds of bad things. I just mean uh I am much more concerned about the overall like the Ellison of it all, the consolidation of media and everything. But this like putting an editorial thumb on the scale to tie him to 911 is disgusting. I bet he was in high school when 911 happened. >> Yeah. It's like 911 reminded me of Abdul Aliad and so he wrote an article about how he's terrible. That was literally the tweet. And it's just like straight racism. And I mean there's just so many things that that you could write about Abdul. I like JBL said he's not my his cup of tea. I'm sure anyone listening to the show can tell like I'm getting increasingly radicalized in his favor just because I'm so annoyed about all the I I'm all of the attacks on him are so bad faith. JD yesterday in his speech was talking about how Abdul is evil and how he only cares about people of his own faith and like he doesn't care about anyone else and I'm just like you. How on earth could such a post have been signed off? Maybe it was an intern asleep at the wheel. Well, about that. It turns out the vice herself led the story, including personally directing the Islamophobic language and praising the story during an editorial meeting. It turns out that there is no level of depravity the pro-Zionist media won't stoop to to smear people who oppose Israel's genocide in Gaza. And in this instant, Vice's intervention dove into the explicit Husbra operations laid out in this clip by Israel's diaspora affairs minister. foreign. Islamic Now, for those listening on the podcast, that was him specifically saying that what Israel should do rather than try and promote the opposition to anti-semitism because average Americans and Europeans don't care about it, which I don't think is true. I think they do care about it. They just don't care about the conflation of anti-inism with anti-semitism. But saying what they do care about is radical Islam. So instead of trying to promote causes against anti-semitism, they should ally with conservative groups in America and the United States to try and promote an anti-radical Islam narrative to try and justify support for Israel, which seems again very similar to what CBS was doing in that article with that that tweet that they put out promoting the article as well. Essentially saying, "Oh, you got to be scared of the Muslims because they're linked to the kind of people who did 9/11." and only by the fact that they share a common faith, not that they share a common ideology or anything like that. It is specifically part of the Hasbro strategy to turn people and turn European and American society inward against itself, create societal discord purely for the interests of their state abroad. That's what's happening there. And it seems like the mainstream media in the United States and also as we see in Europe as well, very happy to play ball with the Hasbro strategy there. Now, this isn't the only angle of attack the press have been using against El Say. We covered on last week's show how Hassan Pikah has been painted as persona on grata by the US media due to his opposition to Israel's genocide. Hassan and Els appeared together on the campaign trail during the Democratic primary, including El appearing on his Twitch broadcast. And immediately, the press were turning the Michigan Senate election into a referendum on a Twitch streamer rather than on Trump or on the cost of living crisis. Eled's reticence to condemn Hassan has led to a reaction of bewilderment from the mainstream media, including this incredulous article from former CNN reporter turned independent journalist Chris Sita. Els has pissed away, that is the technical term, almost a month of his general election campaign against former Republican representative Mike Rogers by continuing to equivocate about his ties to provocator and streamer Hassan Per. Why Elsa has not walked away from PAR as Georgia Senator John Osaf has done is utterly incomprehensible to me and raises uncomfortable questions about what Els believes and is willing to do to hold a Senate seat that is absolutely critical to Democrats making a real run at the Senate majority in 9 weeks time. Uh it's not difficult for us, Chris. It's not difficult for us to realize that actually a referendum on a Twitch streamer is not what anybody cares about. uh the fact that you seem to think that there needs to be a public statement about his relationship to a Twitch streamer, it seems to be a bit of a you problem rather than the problem of the people who are voting on policy or who are voting on Senate control or who are voting on any other things that they want to do so other than the character of Hassan Per. Now, if that didn't seem out of touch enough already, wait until you hear what Celita had to say about why he thought Elsa refused to disavow Hassan Paher. That article goes on to say this, which raises the really important question. Why has El Say not said something like, "Hassan and I see eye to eye on some issues, but his attacks on Jewish Americans are simply a bridge too far. I do not want him associated in any way with my campaign going forward." The way I see it, there are three obvious answers to that question. One, he is stubborn and doesn't want to admit he was wrong about PA. Two, he thinks the political class, like me, don't know anything and that this per thing is all much to do about nothing. or three, he agrees in the main with Pike's views on Israel in the broader Middle East. I think you'll find, Chris, that a the political class does know less than nothing, otherwise they'd know people careful about the cost of living crisis, as I said, and b most Democrats agree with Hassan about Israel, given that they overwhelmingly think it's enacted a genocide in Gaza and support sanctions and embargos, something that the political class just refused to acknowledge. Not even the UK media could resist reviving some Corbyn era hysterics either with Emily Mateless saying this on Global Media's News Asians podcast. But where this came from is essentially not anything that El Say himself has said, but in the company that he has kept. And I think frankly there are more than just a few Democrats who have a real issue with the people that have been endorsing him. Okay, let's put it that way. One of them is Hassan Paher, who is this Twitcher streamer who is really pretty far out actually when it comes to views on um October the 7th, views on 911, views on where he would put um I guess the you know the the sort of the the left-wing vote. He's made people really uncomfortable with some of his I think we're going to say anti-semitic views, aren't we? I mean, I think at this point, you know, pretty pretty clear. And just before um the Michigan primary, El Say was out with Perah and he was kind of on the campaign with him. And it's always this curious thing, isn't it? You know, when when Donald Trump had the Klux Clan kind of former, you know, chief campaigning for him and Trump had to go, "Oh, he's nothing to do with me. He's nothing to do with me. He just likes what I do." That in that is in a sense where Say has been with Paher, right? He endorses me. It doesn't mean that I endorse him, but subsequent interviews have kept on asking say if he will distance himself from PA and I don't know what you think, but I've watched some of those responses and I think S has got pretty uh ratty with that question. He's tried to push it away. He's tried to say, "Oh, come on." You know, Hassan Pleer has has um has taken back his own words on 911. He's taken back his own words on October the 7th. Um, but >> I don't want to talk about California streamer. >> It's all it's all in the past. But it's kind of it's pursued him to a point where it clearly rattles him enough for him to say he's not going to go campaigning with per anymore. Right. And I think that is where that is that is what has left a bit of a taste in the mouth for some Democrats who kind of go, "Yeah, we love the progressive stuff. That's fine. We love the healthcare stuff. That's fine. We don't even mind the socialist label. That's all fine. We don't really want you hanging out with people who who feel like anti-American in in the in the language that they're using and and definitely anti-Semitic. I don't think if you if you if you missed that at home, she just compared Hassan Per to former grand wizard of the KKK, David Duke. What do I even say? Like what do I even say when again he'd even say anything anti-Semitic? You know, people just clipped something out of context. Speaking of not being in context, at no point during any of that, and you can watch the whole podcast at home if you really want to to make sure that I'm not taking her out of context, she didn't even explain or say what this supposed anti-semitism that Hassan Piger had done was. No information for her audience, who again probably don't even know who Hassan Piger is, given that it's mostly like a bunch of middle-class podcast addicts in the UK who listen to the news agents. like none of them know who he is and she hasn't even bothered to elucidate at all what this supposed anti-semitism was and then went on to compare him to I repeat former grand wizard of the KKK David Duke Dalia it seems like Islamophobia is just the kind of bigotry that's just allowed now I mean what's the difference between a comment on a Twitch stream and you know dragging black people out of their homes and lynching them I these two things are the same to me I am equivalent. >> Unbel unbelievable. Um I So there are two things here. The first thing is this idea that Abdul sayed has wasted time uh on his campaign defending his ties to Hassan Pah. I want to be very clear um also no one's time. The media have wasted everyone's time by insisting that that is the story of this election. by refusing to address the actual substantive offering by both of these candidates and making this all about Hassan Pika cuz I can guarantee you the comments made by a streamer in California is not an organic concern of people in Michigan. So, but that that is really the point. The media doesn't want to address the politics. The media doesn't want to cover the fact that this is a candidate who has promised Medicare for all, a candidate who has promised to take corporate money out of politics. You know, a candidate that has, you know, talked about taxing billionaire wealth, that this is a candidate that is showing that you can oppose ar um arm sales to Israel and that you can win an election in the US without taking corporate money. I think that that is the thing that scares them the most. This I because >> outspent 10 to one by Haley Stevens. >> Exactly. cuz the the line has always been well you can't win without corporate money so we have to take corporate money but the success of people like Zoran Mamani is that it shows that actually you can win without taking corporate money so taking corporate money is a choice and it's a compromising choice but the media can't ignore Elsai because he's you know the democratic nominee so instead what they the strategy is to bury the real issue under noise so that they don't have to talk about the politics so that they conceal what actually matters um from the public. Um but that then brings me to kind of CBS because we're talking the me about the media is these quite abstract things. CBS we have a concrete example of how this operates. So CBS the the appointment of Barry Weiss as editor-inchief, you know, the idea that she was sort of directly involved in constructing this headline that was in me, you know, clearly very misleading and clearly had a political um ideological agenda and and and a and a very um what's the word? Disinguous. Uh >> it was literally just like here's 911, here's Abdel. You make your own mind up whether they're linked. >> Exactly. And you know, obviously people are talking about this as serious journalistic misconduct, which it is, but Barry Weiss was not hired to be a journalist. She is not a journalist. She's not a reporter. She has no history in broadcast. She's a pundit, right? She's she's an a professional opinion, right? And journalism is a practice. You are meant to be ostensibly tied to some kind of journalistic code and training, right? Which Barry Weiss doesn't even purport to have. Um, but that is why, you know, she was put in power in in CBS in in charge of the editorial line of CBS as part of a right-wing coup of broadcast media, particularly news media in the United States. And of course, I'm talking here about the purchasing of CBS by a single billionaire family, which, you know, takes over one of the uh most trusted broadcaster in the United States. You and I might not trust it, but mo a lot of people in the country do. And this is a family that has a very explicit political agenda. This is a family that has very close ties with MAGA, that has funded, you know, donated to, um, uh, Trump's campaign, that has very, very close ties not just with Israel, but with Netanyahu himself. Um, and this is only the start. you know, they have got a deal in, you know, over a hundred billion dollar deal to um to purchase um Warner Bros. Warner Brothers, which would mean that then CNN would now be under the control of this this billionaire family, which is, as far as I am aware, the the most significant consolidation of media infrastructure under the power of a single billionaire family. And we see the consequences of that and the way in which that has directly shaped the editorial line in the appointment um of of of Barry Weiss and and the way in which they plan to use the media to secure political particular political um outcomes. And we can see this not only in this headline but even in the way that CBS was restructured because typically an editor-inchief like Barry Weiss, she's supposed to report to like the head of TV, you know, a broadcasting professional. She does not report directly to that anymore. They've changed it so that she reports directly to the Ellison family. Now in the US media in particular, there has always been a very compromisingly close relationship between corporate power, the state, and the media, it's always been bad, right? But when you have an editor-inchief of a major broadcasting channel directly reporting to the corporate head, right? the the people who own the organization that represents a complete closing of that gap. Like we don't even have that slight little breathing room that is required for journalistic integrity. We have got a direct collapse of corporate ownership and and and an editorial line. And the thing that pisses me off the most about Miss Barry Weiss as well is that she makes this meal out of like I'm this heterodox brave thinker. You know, I I'm not afraid to speak truth to power. what she's talking about. Basically, she's like, "I'm a a woman. I am a lesbian and I'm Jewish. So, that means that you would look at me and you would think that I was on the left, but actually I'm not. I'm actually conservative." Like, what are her politics? The main two pillars of her politics are ardent Zionism and anti-woke moral panics. Congratulations, babe. You are square within the establishment, you know, political status quo. Like, there's nothing brave about holding those positions. Like, you're just a conservative. there's nothing brave, but but she's able to kind of create this vision of herself as being this brave hetradox woman um you know thinker when actually that's all very surface. She's not even a trained journalist. >> And that's the thing again is just the level to which I think there's been loads of people who are in her kind of similar position who've had their brains fried by opposition to >> Israel. I don't want to act like it was all great before. I don't want to act like CBS or these these fountains of journalistic integrity. I've just finished watching um I w watched the other day um Amy Goodman's film um about which kind of traces the history of democracy now and traces the history of her career and you could really see there that like it's kind of always been a bit of a farce but I think the the complete the complete closing of that gap between corporate ownership and editorial line sets like an an obscene precedent and it's why independent media is so important >> and you can subscribe so help independent media at novaria.com/sport An excellent an excellent little segue there. And what's interesting the comparison between the the vibe shift in Barry Vice compared to Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell. They are former Republican strategists, right? They were formerly of the party that you know there was the you know the the more racist party out of the two parties in the United States, right? and everything that's happened over the past, you know, um, I guess 10 years now since Donald Trump first became president and now they're talking about how it's insane the level of racism about Islamophobia like calling out I mean the the whole media landscape in being bigoted towards Abdul El in a way that you would never have seen from those kind of people before. the level to which that so many people have just had their minds changed in this period of political turmoil. This upending of former coalitions I find super interesting like I even saw Tucker Carlson in a clip when he was viewing Saga and Jetty essentially say can never vote for Mike Rogers by doing like a not necessarily endorsement of El Say but saying that you know implying that he would rather vote for him because of like just how horrendous Israel and the genocide has changed his mind on politics. It's a really interesting time to be to be a journalist. >> Yeah. And I think what's really tricky about it is this crop of politicians who are winning on different terms, they are winning with different stakeholders. And that's really scary because once you start to show that it is possible to win electoral power to win elections without bending the knee to corporate power then the kind of the entire disciplinary mechanism that has been established over the past like 20 years becomes much more fragile you know >> and again like people who like you look at the Chris Lita thing there who he just he had this assumption about what people cared about because of what the whole of the kind of media sphere that he lived in this bubble that he lived in this echo chamber and like well obviously he has to condemn Assan Pike people who care about this is a big important thing for the election obviously it wasn't a big thing for the election and he literally cannot comprehend that things are different than that and the same is true from the way in which the media is approaching these changing stakeholders and it is how people understand who those stakeholders are that will change the face of very partisan journalism in the United States I think certainly for years to come thank you very much for joining me tonight darling it's been absolutely wonderful as always >> thanks for having me gorgeous >> as always for ladies nights now I thank you everyone at home for tuning in as well. Come back tomorrow for another live show from 6 p.m. For now, you've been watching Navara Media. Good night.