An old etonian of course cant be expected to have the same experience ahead of another National Lockdown is class war being waged in our name we speak to labor panel griffiths of the report about old Etonian Boris johnsons ability to protect the most vulnerable in our society and will the 2nd lockdown kill off the multibillion pound culture industry in britain we speak to enter shikari 0 reynolds about why he has written to u. K. Johnson the ritchie son at about saving the arts almost more coming up in todays going underground but 1st while the United States comes to terms with election 2020 nato partner britain is facing a Coronavirus Crisis england is on the eve of a National Lockdown with the threat of a new me konami depression spiraling homelessness and suicide rates and children going hungry you gave him Boris Johnson has refused to extend a Free School Meals program to over a 1000000 children which has sparked outrage across the political spectrum joining me now from london is low. Lord griffiths of bari porter who has been raising the issue in britain 2nd chamber the house of lords thanks so much will have it for coming on using a seat in the house of lords to campaign for the expansion of Free School Meals what is it like to live on the. Well when i was a small child i did little nym and the memory hasnt faded i was raised in a one parent family in poor circumstances and my mother was on benefits and the only money she had was the pittance that came from that benefit so she counted on this the preschool me at the. Yard of the schools they went to and i know that when it came to the holidays she burst fearful that she would not have the sort of budget that would allow it to put food on the table in a world of growing boys need so i remember the pentagon remember the fear right members haggard face a member of the anxieties just as much to do with a sense of impending doom as it is a part of what i ate and what i did. Now of course you know that british Prime Minister of our strength and says money has been given to local councils to help children universal credit the relatively new Social Security system as being increased for a poor of children who why why you criticize why have you been criticizing our stance of his government over not extending the Free School Meals program to say. Well i cant understand how hes got to this point politically let alone morally the fact is that hes right the money has been given to councils who according to the priorities they set will decide where to place the question of school meals for children and these councils are 10 years of suffering from austerity and cutbacks on a massive scale and some of those comes to the needy areas will in fact find it difficult to Prioritize School bills and they have other Public Services to prioritize attend to also some of the car councils will take the money that Boris Johnson talks about and apply it to provide meals for help for children through the holiday period but other councils will have different priorities and wont so the thrust of my argument and concern is that the present method to dealing with what is definitely a problem is likely to lead to a Postcode Lottery provision some people and predictably it will be the people in the poorest areas will always suffer in these cases who will go without the media was it wasnt really that much of an issue in the Us Election Campaign 40000000 can eat and when the food stamps the night of the election people are going to wonder why the 6th richest economy on a one needs a food stamp type program like Free School Meals instead of proper session security payments being made to have a quick level for the families can feed themselves were talking about 1314000 children yes well i mean that is a very nice philosophical question for journalists and people like myself to ask i look at it as marcus rush would look at it from the point of view of the children concerned whether or not its a proper way to do it the fact is in these policies times that were living in there will be children who will go without food and who was for. Emilies will suffer accordingly through the School Holidays this is a 1st aid response remember Boris Johnson so we are going to wait to be are going to the summit duly you turn pro i did it and provided a lot of Political Capital room so i doing it i dont understand where you can see that you could do that again its not going to cost in the grand scheme of things in these difficult times. You might get money to achieve you mention marcus rash from the football superstar england football superstar of course you must have heard in the house of commons the 1st chamber in parliament that one m. P. Called him a virtue signal if talking about re school meals in the 1st place its only because youre on a decent Television Channel that i wont tell you what i call him. Ok well im back to that commons debate maybe was more civilised in the moods at tory m. P. Ben bradley who has said he was taken out of context and deleted the tweet actually he said at one school in mansfield 75 percent of kids have a social worker 25 percent of parents are illiterate one kid lives in a cracked and another in a brothel extending Free School Meals doesnt reach these kids effectively gives cash he seemed to be saying although he says he was taken out of context directly to a crackdown on a brothel. Well im not going to try to defend remarks like that made by someone to whom you should put the question but i am going to say that i really repeat the fact that there will be children who do not School Holiday will be families who suffered terribly because sustenance and nourishment d will be denied them its unbelievably true and its its whether theres a mistake and when theres a theres an error at the margin of error in the way we provide and the money goes d in and directions we can control is neither here nor there as far as im concerned it is a moral duty knowing the problem exists in the uniform and measured response when trying to achieve the feeding of children what can be more clear than that i dont think johnson even raised the issue of means testing context to the Free School Meals debate is this at heart a class war issue you said in the house of lords and all the tony and of course combi expected to have had the same experience. Well i mean look question of class is a very proper want to ask in britain i have to say all and telling us that when i had no footwear i did with footwear to to wear to school where we lived in one room in a brick yard where my mother was a sick person and depended on benefits and i know how difficult it was to break out of what was like a slavery really in the School Holidays in order to put food on the table for me the important thing is to make sure that we do in the end a uniform way across the country rests this need i love the way that marcus rasher the 22 year old young man has really rallied the country behind him in a way that politicians around. Was born in one of the poorest areas off britain but why mention whats the relevance of a way Boris Johnson went to school. Wherell come on i mean. To me to rebirth. Just brushes my class prejudice that would say things about people i know lots of really joannes and a decent enough people but they do not understand poverty they do not on the boat understand. They have to be a fabulous amount of money behind and what in those schools they do not understand it and i said mean that and i wish that we go to the fact as a country now of course you know the coronavirus pandemic is presumably what the north has been discussing quite a lot the responses to it theres obviously a lot of money to go around during the pandemic while these Free School Meals are being denied during halftime and perhaps during christmas what have you made. For instance dido hardings track and Trace Commission by the British Government as britain is being having one of the worst g. 7 death rates on earth. Well i mean im not going to comment on that one but im going to recognize behind your question attracted a huge amount of money going to old mines of money being directed towards the various needs and factors that are affecting us across the country theres no doubt about that and its going to be a dreadful job for the jobs it struck of the government d once we weathered this storm triangle Something Back together again i dont deny that for a moment and there are lots of places where when we have time to look at it all because point the finger and address the criticisms but you know neither the itll be too late then the National Audit office boss got davis investigating right now pandemic contract after the department of health and social care agreed 11000000000 in the 5 months to september i mean do you agree with him about the concern about transparency over all these contracts being given to private Companies Join the pandemic. I think that there are a lot of pressure has to be asked and yes it is too late to wait for afterwards and be reflective and so on so full and but there are 2 jobs to do one is to try as quickly as possible to identify needs you know and address them is best we can and secondly we will have to learn from this program late in the day it is because im pretty sure it will be another one of these states coming before too long that the shame for me is that we didnt anticipate. Something like this happening before now ok im on those contracts and fantasy that harding hasnt his the anticorruption champion of our strengthens anticorruption champion but youre not concerned at the moment in the nords itself is not doing any investigative work as to how these contracts are being meted out i understand there being some of them being made with no going to tender or a competition well i read the newspaper reports the same as you have and i do know people on our benches my benches im a labor party person who are who have exactly the same concerns that youre expressing and are asking probing questions about them to seeking satisfaction there is a process of inquiry and interrogation happening im not party to those thats not my neck of the woods in terms of the things i found on the concerns you expressed a real i do believe that in these attenuated times when government is working in a 100 manner and therefore we have to work very very hard to keep on top of things but i do believe that the debate is happening but what we come to an agreement about this week next week will have been overtaken by events yet again a must in the story of the last month or 2 now i know David Cameron and to resume came under attack by them from the un special rapporteur on poverty as austerity of the 20 weight crisis hit but it was common talk about a big Society Given the. Arent as we speak any Free School Meals programs being meted out apart from no clue council jurisdictions will charities just have to intervene and in fact will some on the tory benches be saying this is an example of the great. Big society filling in while these Free School Meals arent denied from the government and in fact thats an ideologically better way to organize society well i have to say that since d again the footballer marcus trash would came out and and spearheaded this campaign in the summer 1st of all but again no i mean it has been astonishing the response to this come not just from Civil Society but from the world of commerce i mean rest or all those im definitely one of the roma. There is there is an enormous response so d i think that thats good but once again it is who is going to treat those responses will hit the mark in places only a whole that do better than other places that dont do so d well yes they d did that the charitable sector. Sector yes the local authorities there will be some response but it will be a kind of stroke of luck if you default in your neck of the woods d oh griffiths thank you. After the break will a 2nd lockdown in england finish off the multimillion pound art sector in britain. Looking. To look. Good and shari from and reynolds explains the class dimension of the u. K. Governments culture recovery from let me ask you a universal basic game comes could be the only solution to saving the Music Industry all the same or going over but you are going underground. Least. Welcome back in part one we discussed the worst off in england on the eve of tomorrows mass lockdown one area hit hardest by the pandemic and the effect of lockdown has been the Creative Industries that could lose 4 100000. 00 jobs this year well the government is appealing to urge those in the arts to retrain for other vocations lead singer iraq and then josh akari reynolds has written a letter to the u. K. Chancellor richardson are pleading with him to save a live Music Industry the could potentially lose almost 2 thirds of its workforce by christmas going underground Deputy Editor charlie cook caught up with him earlier rau thank you so much for coming and going underground to stop by telling us about the latter you wrote to the u. K. Chancellor recently yes thanks for having me yeah bro unless its a richie to my mate richie basically kind of summarizing the state of the Music Industry as i say at the moment and. Really just asking all pleading for them to sort of do more for the the arts for the for culture the Music Industry i suppose especially because thats been the hardest hit. And it will be the last industry to sort of resurface from the rubble as well because it relies so much on live events and gigs on shows and obviously everythings been been cancelled and rescheduled and cancelled again keep using the joke that its like schroedingers. Were not sure when we can play if gigs are going to be a thing or if theyre not at the moment. So yeah it was it was just a letter sort of trying to fill everyone in on what its like from my perspective and maybe even not so much my perspective but from a perspective from the perspective of people d in the industry who clearly arent being supported at all you know i have some what a privilege somewhat of a pedestal and a found base so i can keep myself going for a little bit but theres people that i know in the industry who are just clueless and. And quite worried and fearful of for their own futures that went well the culture secretary oliver down is being town to his 1570000000 pound Recovery Funders of the biggest single investment in the arts and he says in the history of the nation 257000000 of that is going to save 1300 theaters museums and venues and what not doing thats too little too late or is that enough i mean like you know we have to acknowledge that thats a significant amount of money and it is getting to some venues theaters organizations orchestras i was going through the list last night and so that bennys small venues like the chain reason south and its image as a great venue that we supply is getting 50000 but then theres these massive discrepancies so you got 1000000 going to secret cinema and the ministry of sound and then youve got like 34000000 going to English Heritage and historic role places like Highclere Castle in hampshire which is where Downton Abbey is filmed so i dont think i think theres a lot of misunderstanding about the serious scope of what this culture of Recovery Fund is actually funding you know its domestic industry itself which is surely one of the most drastically hit industries that there is im not sure how much money will actually find its way to the artists or the actors the performers the dances you know and thats even before we get to the supporting like roles as in like a sound design as a lying design as stage technicians you know the list just goes on and on and on yeah i was going to do it more money should go directly to those to those freelancers and to the whole army of freelancers that work around the Music Industry yeah i mean i i said at the beginning this thing that i thought universal basic income would be the most sort of logical thing now the amount of research and testing that going into that some form of basic income i think would have taken away a lot of the problems and you know if we all have an income as a city. I think we wouldnt be in the drastic position that were in with these these vast inequalities in how people are being able to support themselves during this crisis ive seen you know ive already got like. Production manager for instance is looking at his cash flow and working out whether hell have to sell his house early next year if his job hunting continues to file which for a lot of people is because theres not many jobs around and you know as it is and even if they get these sort of retraining opportunities how are they spaces for themselves whilst theyre retraining that theres a lot of lot of questions and its become a very sort of messy way to deal with it so im not im not sure what im going to do im sort of hanging on the moment im writing a book but for lots of people its its a lot more difficult its you know having to look at serious questions. For their vocation you know in a complete level so its its very some people are going through serious amounts of anxiety and difficulties in trying to work out what their life now tape takes that weve suddenly decided that music and culture isnt worth saving doing as a class element in fact that high culture thing 3 prioritize your ballets your operas and kind of in the alternative in clubs are not so covered by this fast tranche of money from the cult sector yeah i think to a certain extent thats to be expected because i doubt a lot you know thats why i made a few sort of snide the jokes in the letter i write i doubt a lot of this government has much of a there no idea of just how beneficial the lowbrow or you know how everyone is scribe it sectors are of course that theyre providing. Really community as well as Like Mental Health support. For hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country but i think theyre often overlooked but that were sort of used to that to a certain extent i didnt expect that to be esp as pacific fund you know going to sort of pop rock alternative you know those types of cultures. So yeah it just makes it all the more harder for people involved in those industries. Im speaking to other artists and poets and one on this issue in science said that because our it is bastard kind of challenge power and challenge politics that its not ever going to really be a priority for politicians to fund it because its at its best an antagonistic force in a way. Yeah i think yeah i think thats a good point i think theres going to be a lot of those sorts of. Arts and music scenes and cultures that yeah will just be sort of overlooked because its another its another win in the general culture war isnt it is just like oh we can we can sort of chop off the limbs of a few of those areas that are sort of chipping away at us if you like in terms of criticism. And i think that thats a general d. So of direction anyway that politics is taken isnt it the department for education categorized anticapitalism as an extreme political stance and and dissuaded on a dissuaded of people say they cant use any sort of late show like that in education and so theres this real sort of narron of the of the blinkered way that we look at the world which i think is the complete wrong way to be looking at the moment amount of problems that were in them out of serious structural difficulties that were in i think now more than ever we need like serious broad thinking of how we can create a more sustainable. A more Stable Society and you talk in your latter on and also in your music about kind of community and unity more generally and drink a lot of the kind of issues where it is because of a kind of thought to right commitment to the individual and thats the reason why the government maybe doesnt seem use it as a priority it doesnt see the funding of Public Services as a priority there is that this general sort of mindset i dont know whether we can call it mere liberalism or whether it has some even broader sense where there is basically this this mindset of self interest of that is the driving force not just behind economics but just sort of society. And i think you know for one the pandemic is as proven how you know barry said that himself to me about about how that there is certainly such a thing as a society and i think it proves that were just one organism we all affect each other on a global scale. And i think looking at society. In a in a more sort of scientific or rational way the that we are you know one working organism together on one planet with one chance at surviving i think it needs to be needs to happen now more than ever. And just finally tell me about your the book youre working on the just mentioned based on your most recent album yes yes so we released an album of the at the start of lockdown basically at the beginning of all this which was a very difficult because it took out kind of. Our plans of how to promote it how to toll the album. And im now writing the sort of a i guess the accompaniment guide to the d to the music which it looks at. Kind of the word possibility really the fact that its gone from something that we we salute to the future and we used to be like infused by the train to vittie the possibility and you know everything that was kind of good about life was right there to be taken whereas im not now i think that over the last so decade or 5 years especially so many things have happened that we would never never thought were possible. And its become something thats quite daunting now to look at the future especially with all the existential threats that we face from Climate Change to the Ongoing Nuclear threat and to also the more sort of subtle threats of a polarized society and i think that the these subtle ways that the online world has changed us and divided us and reinforced. All of that polarization so its a yes its a kind of as a sobering book about the subjects but i think its sort of trying to just encourage a general discussion to just been this idea of there is no alternative which is one of the track titles on the album and just to say now more than ever like we do not care about this left right divide we just want rational scientific. Measured like talk not even debate because debate is just is just competition is just more shouting the loudest make another person look silly catching them out i dont think thats helpful its also its all about sitting down and trying to have calm conversations into what we can do structurally to fix the problems that were in and i was going to ask you because it comes to mind i dont know if you consider your band a political band but thats one of the any thoughts about the kind of stigma that the tom political band comes in because usually puts you in quite a narrow box. Yeah weve weve had to deal with that for years we just call it the p. Word because yeah i think especially for the u. S. Politics can. Be something that you look at and you just see old men bickering. And it can be a very difficult thing to be infused by. So i think that the more that we have this divided quite hostile or at least terribly in a Civil Society the harder is to to get people into thinking about broader subjects thinking about perspectives thinking about how politics affects their lives and what they can do as individuals to try to actively make the world a better place so you know weve struggled with it with that for for the for the majority of our career but i think its something that we have were constantly motivated to push forward d on by the people that we meet who have been infused to get in politics more at least discuss it and and kind of educate themselves on the the wider. Things that our Society Faces ronald thank you so much thanks so much for me and disregarded reynolds there speaking to going on the ground Deputy Editor charlie cook thats in the show will be back on saturday when we return to the u. S. To look at what we can expect from the next 4 years in a superpower facing economic racial and Health Crises until then subscribe to going on the run on you tube and join us on Twitter Facebook instagram sound. People say. Worthless but you see how difficult it is to blast the money you got it takes some skill they have to go to college coming and. You can save someone if you have a small and direct means say on the painting that you can then save your thousands of other lives well my response is that the way we should think about what is just is that just as theres a child in a store experiment full of you in this burning building you can say well also just thousands of children around the world millions of children and the world you could potentially state it weight its light within the situation being facing a burning building just all the time. The 1st arrests are made at the count every vote protests in new york meanwhile republicans and democrats are gearing up for a protracted fight over several key states. Donald trump is crying foul bringing cases to halt the counts and michigan pennsylvania and georgia and demanding a recount in wisconsin joe biden meanwhile is confident hes creeping ever closer towards the white house. Is clear that we would you know if states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. And the fallout from the knife edge election could potentially drag on for days