The morning news updates we will see you back then here on out international. Time after time here were going underground a year to the day since u. K. Prime minister Boris Johnsons landslide victory in the countrys general election a year in office arguably eclipsed by a pandemic that is not the u. K. With the highest number of coronavirus related deaths in europe coming up on the show 2000000 thats the number of u. K. Families estimated to be pushed into extreme poverty by privileging the rich during coronavirus we talk to the United Nations he would scream poverty special about the prospect of a 1000000 more british children struggling to stay warm will be clean and ask whether the Boris Johnson government is merely continuing what the un has characterized the. An anti for ideological project to systematically him is a rage millions grand will a biden presidency be able to pull off the same p. R. Conjuring trick that the Obama White House did we told the white houses 1st official videographer an aide to both new liberal obama and the new liberal senator Bernie Sanders all the some more coming up in todays going underground and 1st with the u. N. Warning 200000000 more people could be pushed into extreme poverty by coronavirus the scale of the problem here in the u. K. The worlds 5th largest economy is becoming clearer u. K. Antipoverty n. G. O. The Joseph Roundtree foundation says levels of destitution could be set to double in the wake of the pandemic with 2000000 including a 1000000 children struggling to eat stay warm or keep clean but according to the un destitution was already rising before the pandemic when un special rapporteur on extreme poverty in 2019 for the boston claimed britain was in the grip of an ideological project causing pain and misery well now its successor alleviate the shooter joins me now from brussels levey thanks so much for coming on obviously brussels in the news here over bricks it talks but just tell me what brings you to becoming special robert or in extreme poverty as were hearing horrific exponential change in extreme poverty in the wake of coronavirus let alone what was happening before coronavirus. Indeed so this is a time of crisis its each stream the worrying to see the impact that the current 1000. 00 pandemic is having its is at the same time a time of opportunities when i took up my role as special report on the right to food in 2008 we already had a global food price crisis that was. Weedy impacting populations very significant the with a doubling or tripling of prices of basic commodities such as we saw. And by some Global Markets and this is these are times where governments can also wake up to their responsibilities and where bold ideas can be put forward what did it make you feel when you heard that the United States the democrats and the republicans put 740000000000. 00 more money into the pentagon well look the amounts of money injected in the economy since the start of the bendel meet in march 2020 is absolutely astounding all together its about 12000000000. 00 u. S. Dollars which is an unprecedented amount in times of peace that states have injected in the economy a small fraction of this goes to source of addiction its not insignificant but it is much less than would be required to keep the populations safe and prevent people from from falling into poverty so yes we should rethink our priorities yeah i mean i mean i was are very into the pentagon there but i mean you know very well that. A lot of people in the media arguably often talk about extreme poverty being being focused on the global south its not really a developed world problem what would you say to that. Well very strikingly disappearance of people in poverty is not very difference whether they live in an affluent country a rich country or or whether they live in in poverty ended up in south they spirits its usually abuse discrimination they have a sense of being powerless politically and marginalized economically and although their material conditions may be different they have the same experience of poverty that. Made them. Unable to really compete with others in society and so it is this this sense of much as they should thats the experience whether in norway in the u. K. Or in uganda ok but if you did congratulate the Global Community on the putting more money into the welfare of people what do you make of the fact that lots of the money say here in britain has gone to companies strengthens the treasury here using the bank of england to to give money to come Companies Like chanel 600000000 Luxury Brands that alone the airlines i want to get on to Climate Change in a bit do you believe that there has been signs of a trickle down ideological approach to poverty this money will eventually find its way to help the poor the us are concerned about. Well on the one hand i understand the need to ensure that companies do not fall bankrupt and to allow them to have access to liquidity is in this time but crisis but it should have been seized as an opportunity to impose very strong conditions on companies that are build outs with taxpayers money they should have been imposing a condition for example related to where they pay their taxes or whether the established subsidiary entities in tax havens or they might have been imposed condition to reduce the gap between the the highest wages paid in the company to and the lowest wages paid in the company or they could have imposed conditions linked to the ecological transition and unfortunately very few countries have provided state aid but big money to companies attaching such conditions to those companies being supported i think its a missed opportunity and i hope we will do better in the future yet companies obviously refute or theyre doing anything wrong with these often loans theyre getting they they do have to pay them back so youre not detecting any ecological payback as part of their defacto bailout what you wanted the British Government to to leverage ecology i think you just produce a report of the over the over the indeed this is a huge missed opportunity the United Nations Environment Program just published a report showing that if this money were well invested in renewables in infrastructure for public transport even in the circular economy and a repair economy and so on you know terms in greening the economy we could succeed in in meeting the objectives of the various climates when all those Companies Say theyre being environmental anyway that they have Environmental Policies anyway they dont need to be told by the government well look today 8 makes no sense to to support companies that are exploiting fossil energy so that top opposing. Low cost actress i think its the investments of the 20th century that are now still haunting us and i think it it should have it would have been much wiser to seize this opportunity to radically green the economy and to move to climate you try to see by 2050 with a guide of Investment Choices made today we are getting nowhere near the starlets is there a sign of ideological policy then in the wake of coronavirus will you be looking at that i know your brief is the entire world but obviously operate as a Philip Alston claim that britain was in the grip of ideological in his aeration of people look i think one major problem is indeed the way we look at poverty all too often and particularly in in in the anglo food world we speak about antipoverty strategies as welfare policies that are bailing out people people who are not well qualified for the job market people who made the wrong choices in life who have not been able to seize the opportunities presented to them and we must change this course in reality polity is a societal issue not an individual responsibility and really poverty is the price we pay for us being unable to build an Inclusive Society that value people whatever their background is and i think that is a disco was about poverty that is extremely problematic thats blames them and she seems then for the situation in in which they find themselves but we so often hear about this ideal of meritocracy both labor and tory politicians here in britain talk about it that requires a certain amount of poverty doesnt it from her talk receive to work. Well its a major problem that social protection is often seen as potentially desensitizing people from work making people lazy and i think that is really misconstruing the problem social protection is a way to encourage people to invest in in Human Capital to seek a better education for themselves and for their children its also a way to allow people to take risks as intrapreneur is because they know they will be supported if indeed they feel in their business project so sort of addiction is a very good investment to society can make for a Sustainable Future and for its economy to thrive as a result of people being better trained educated and thus performing better are you prepared for the effectively personal attacks that you may get from governments all around the world for your work as special rapporteur you all know that your previous or the British Government said about a Philip Alstons report on britain that the uns own data shows the u. K. Is one of the happiest places in the world to live contradicting it seem to be all still report and as regards methodology is used by special reporters like yourself this is a barely believable documentation of britain based on a tiny period of time spent here paints a completely inaccurate picture of our approach to tackling poverty what do you make of this tiny period of time that the government not only the British Government any government from a pin on you when you criticize their policies on extreme poverty look our rule is to be mediator between the Scientific Community the the Civil Society n. G. O. S and and finally governments and we are simply there to present governments with a mirror of what their country looks like and the impacts of the policy choices they make and of course many problems are easier to ignore then through a jets. We need to draw attention of governments to the 9th box in their policies to parts of the impacts that their policies have they didnt. We prefer it to you to ignore looking in the other way but i think sound policy starts with recognizing the truth and facing reality and that is our route well apart from blind spot what do you think the global hotspots are today and what the ones youre going to be focusing on in the image of future unfortunately the impacts of the crisis on nobody are widespread and hit all continents but of course the paradox is that although the Global Economy shall contract by perhaps 5 percent in 2020 as a result of the of the crisis the worst impacts will not be in the richest countries where the recession is most severe it will be in developing countries where the recession is least severe but because these countries are much less went prepared to withstand the shock so these are countries that have a huge public debt already that have much of their working population in the Informal Sector these are countries that. Export raw commodities and Global Markets and have seen their export revenues significant significantly fall in in recent years and these countries are completely prepared to face the economy compacts of the crisis so it is there that extreme poverty will win rights and unfortunately these are countries where the social Protection Systems are not equipped to respond adequately to protect the population ok well just finally back to the socalled developed world what prevents media. And politicians policymakers from being able to see poverty alone extreme poverty i mean theyre the rountree report that just came out said that of course theres a north of england but its actually in a london where journalists in the media class hang out why cant they see the extreme poverty that or that a special operator like you can. I think one major part of the explanation is that we believe things will solve themselves if the economy is left to grow and we then develop a series of policies in the name of growing the economy increasing wealth for example by deregulating the labor markets by reducing Public Services in order to incentivize people to work and and take care of themselves and as a result we actually worsen even equalities and we worsen poverty and i think its important to emphasize that fighting inequality is not just in the interests of people in poverty its in the interest of all of us because as in your country kate bigots and Richard Wilkinson have shown as the Equality Trust for example emphasizes fighting inequality makes societies much healthier much more resilient and much better equipped to tackle issues such as teenage pregnancy. Or depression and so a society is better off if its members are more equal and if the gaps between the ultra rich and the poor is groups of the population is narrowed down so matter up that there my pleasure entirely thank you after the break former white house for the owner for under then u. S. President barack obama and Vice President Joe Biden Arun Shourie tells us why he thinks the u. S. Is not going to have a defacto 3rd obama term under president elect joe biden all of them are going up about 2 of going on the ground. Russian television some demonstrators right now the propaganda machine. Its always russian. Miracle illegal illegal. Im still in it so. Why. They still wont go. To the west. Elite. The world is driven by shaped by those. Things. We dare to ask. Welcome back former us. Vice President Joe Biden accept to take the keys of the white house in just over a months time already biden has made it clear to Boris Johnson that ireland is not a bricks and negotiable now many are wondering how biden will compare to his program. As a barak obama one man who was able to get up close and personal to the last democratic u. S. President is our own choudhry the white houses 1st official video from under obama he joins me now from berlin erin thanks so much for coming on i want to begin by why youre even in berlin of course london is looking to berlin because the brics it negotiations what exactly have you gone on to do up to helping but he signed isnt obama what im trying to take a lot of the things that we learned in the Campaign Techniques we perfected 1st with obama and then under under bernie and used them to sort of strike back against the nativist populist far right way of happening all across the world so here in berlin im just a stones throw away from a lot of the hot spots where we see the far right bubbling up and you really think its no exaggeration the threat of the far right in europe today absolutely and i actually think when europe catches a cold its america who sneezes better than the other way around i think youd be hard pressed to find a Trump Victory in 2016 without brechts it 1st brought in and you hope seeing that politicians are using this nativist rhetoric for electoral advantage absolutely absolutely and especially with that with the pandemic really opening up some of us you know shining a bright light on some of the inequality thats happening you are seeing more and more right wing and far right wing people using the language of social democracy and talking about corporations and taxing them and all of these things that normally would have been the purview of the center left now has been promoting his book and talked about nativism in the use of that for electoral and vantage im going to ask you given that you are obamas man what is joe biden like. Joe biden is much like rock obama is exactly who you think he is he is the same on and off camera but unlike barack obama really sort of was focused in on one thing joe biden has had several apps to his life you know i think now we think of him as being broke obamas partner in all things up but when we took him on board in 2008 as the Vice President ial nominee it was precisely because he wasnt like obama because he was more conserve because he did represent an older generation and that maybe america wasnt ready for a young progressive black guy that we did pick the old white guy and i think he has the opportunity again to remake himself and decide if he wants to be f. D. R. If he wants to be Herbert Hoover but has he actually changed i mean hes infamous obviously for supporting the iraq war and the patriot act a drone killing he was once anti choice famously when it comes to womens rights i mean what are you making of these appoint appointments tony blinken an architect of destroying africas richest per capita country libya this guy lloyd austin a raytheon weapons contractors i know have been big i know that people who make the bullets d should not decide when we shoot them now i will say as a progressive as an american left as this so far we have been very disappointed in the folks that by mr rounding himself with and as we know from the obama transition this is the time to really bring pressure to really be putting pressure on biden to pick some new people but i have to say the capture of both parties by military contractors is you know something thats been happening since eisenhower warned us about it in the fiftys and shows no sign of abating and this is i think probably the hardest most intractable problem that we have in the us right now you know if you look at a map of wealth in the u. S. You wont find the hot spots in new york and california where you think you would find them you actually find them in a ring around washington d. C. In maryland virginia where these military contractors live and work being progressive working around obama back then in the in the west wing i mean just the caged children mexican in latin america from refugees from latin american war was catalyzed by the United States they had them 1st under obama it was trump arguably you started to cut down on caging children how did a progressive end up working with obama in the 1st place one could probably ask you. You know it was strictly i think the his opposition to the iraq war again which was so unusual for a politician especially someone who wants to be president democrats usually think they have to be extremely pro war in order to achieve any kind of electoral victory brought folks like myself onto the team people who im not a democrat im an independent and one of the reasons was that you didnt see a lot of difference in the parties but you were like this guy seems to have number one star quality and number 2 is promising to end this war which seems like the greatest Foreign Policy disaster in American History and so a lot of us came on board strictly because of that and then i would say when youre inside the bubble youre inside the bubble its hard to see beyond the choices that youre given so constantly i was in rooms where i saw you know obama picking what i thought was the best of say 5 choices however i think it would some retrospect with some time and with some soul searching on myself i realize how important it is to get different people actually offering a president 3 different choices and thats why some of the biden picks at have been so disappointing but one thing i do want to say and i think you raise a good point it is there was a very different feeling being a progressive and a leftist in the Obama Administration then there has been post the 2016 election with all that animosity that was kicked out you know i never felt like i couldnt say what i thought even if it was the president s senior advisors to the president himself and they might not act on that knowledge but they would acknowledge that i had said it acknowledged there was intelligence behind it maybe expressed disappointment they couldnt do that kind of thing but that kind of respect and feeling of camaraderie and were in this together dropped out in 2016 with this ugly primary fight and i do think some of that is the elements around Hillary Clinton sort of really spoiling for these fights i mean you can see already the most controversial. Figure being nominated is neera tanden who is having a famous twitter night fighter right this is sort of what is your teller about town tell us about how because as you know progressive meet here in europe and the United States quite lenient on these biden appointees whats wrong with their attempt of what she represents the centrist or even center right wing of the party when it comes to a war famously she had a memo where she thought that the libyans really ought to pay us back for bombing them which is you know a a hard proposition a stumbling their oil in other words i mean i do want to get on to videography generally but biden is the 1st president if it becomes president in january to not say we dont want any more wars trump of Course Campaign said we dont want any more wars and im like come bamma didnt cut any new wars to them that bode ill for will be nice the general world order bodes ill for world peace and and so you have the tension in folks like biden between wanting to preserve a world order that we see in many ways crumbling around us and being willing to exercise violence for fear of the unknown folks like biden splitting the best like would say yes maybe some of this is regrettable but you know the chaos that would happen if it doesnt and roll d this way someone like me personally i think feels that whatever comes next is coming next and so making sure we shape it in a good way is more important than holding on to what we have now but thats not the way that i think a lot of folks in washington think about it but youre right donald trump one of the issues you want and if you want my personal opinion these mysterious swing voters in iowa went from obama to trump without asking go in the middle are peace voters and when donald trump talked about bringing the troops home from afghanistan thought well that sounds like a good idea to me as well and i think one of the things to me that has been sort. The most disappointing in the post obama in years has even been seeing him backtrack a bit on what i thought was a very smart stance on syria in which he said just because the world says its ok to bomb someone just because you cant thats not a good reasons. I do worry that thats the 1st place along with iran that biden ministration may stumble into or quite actively start a war well syria and the whole global south im sure pray for the new u. S. War planes to to bomb them on video graphy i dont know whether youre going to bid to me whether you manipulated the images to make the Obama White House and look good what do you expect from a bible administration when it comes to the manipulation of image a lot of people of course saying that hes a hes going senile his critics. I think youll see less backstage videography then you did with obama just like you saw very little with trump and heres why its actually a legal recent post Richard Nixon or something called the president ial records act which says that everything john in service of the president should be made available to the public and this is interpreted as also meaning that all the footage i shot of obama whether or not i put it out whether or not it was edited or even as you say manipulated which is something i would say we didnt do you obviously selectively at it you cropped you show the things that you want to show you dont show things you dont want to show but actually manipulating an image was something that was a line that we very specifically wouldnt cross but all of that footage is going to be available every time the president said a swear yelled at somebody youre going to be able to get all that footage as of next year from the obama president ial library so you really have to trust in the kind of calm and correct character of your candidate and your president if you want to start doing this and assembling lots and lots of footage joe biden for better or for worse you know is somebody who often has trouble expressing what he base said that you know famously has many gaps and i think youll be less likely to see a comprehensive Video Program around him same way we did with obama going wait for next year just finally is the image getting less important a goodly i mean sickest ami here in the the name of but he is suspended Jeremy Corbin theres that famous picture of jeremy called been arrested for demonstrating against apartheid south africa there have been amazing pictures of bunny saunders who you worked with fighting against racism on the streets and he had both of them are the ones being kind of the accused or who thomas and he was accusing the Election Campaign of being an anti semite yeah you know with Jeremy Corbin i certainly think that this kind of picture that was painted became. Became fatal to him but i do think it was his sort of real. Locked inside to push back in a real way that helped that downward spiral continue i think with bernie there was Something Different and some of that falls on us who designed his Communications Strategy and that our narrative for bernie was showing him as somebody who was absolutely consistent throughout time you know very often we would mix footage of him now with footage of the eightys and the 70s of him literally saying the same fame over and over again and this kind of had the effect of making it image of a person who was created an old man you know like in a laboratory in vermont or something and in a way robs him of his childhood its not just this famous picture of him change to the woman in chicago for the housing protest but even on google youd say people searching things like is burning from brooklyn is Bernie Sanders jewish you know because they werent sure because kind of the consistent image that we kept pushing out almost precluded that he had a life before looking exactly like he looks now which is sort of the way he looks up from being mayor of burlington onward so i think not at 1st offering a strong biographical push bernie was a mistake and it was a state that people like myself make should he have won the nomination one of our very 1st project was to make a comic book a biographical comic book explaining about Bernie Sanders childhood that we would release in many different languages and really flood the country with and i guess i still think this is this would be a good technique in those kind of situation and john terry thank you thank you so much and thats it for the show will be back on monday a quarter of a century to the day bill clinton and john majors military adventures in europe ended with millions killed on this
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