A danger of an epidemic from corona in january they that later declared it to be a condom the director general of the World Health Organization said in terms the way of dealing with it is test test test in order to ascertain the levels of infection across our society we didnt do that no we didnt do that here in britain but then Jeremy Corbyn today arguably represents the polar opposite of his success as a guest star that alone Boris Johnson in a new book by the b. B. C. Is stuart macone explains the korban tradition the author of the nanny state made me a story of britain and how to save it joins me now via skype stuart welcome to going underground all the talk here is a Free Internet we need to have a new respect for the shop workers for refuse collectors for n. H. S. People your new book begins with a story about the Public Sector on the post office tower in. Im going with tony benn who i should say that is last to have a Television Interview dont forget even before this program just to recount the beginning of this book well and thats good to know the you got a last interview from him a great great now i dont usually yeah we were yeah its sort of the siege of the book reading the book begins with i was doing a t. V. Interview with tony bennett and we would united talk of the what many people still think of as the post office tyrion and london g. P. O. Chapter in bloomsbury and them. The p. R. Guy for British Telecom n o n listen to our kind of chit chat before we began internee came over and said hey guys just just want change you can call it the g. P. U. Chair of the time its the bt tower its the British Telecom terrorism in the g. P. O. Quite some times if you could remember to say now and tony benn fixed him with this when theyre in gaze said. I commissioned this tower i was involved in the in the building of this terrible planning stage it was commissioned by the government it was built and designed by engineers not checked of the state and it was paid for by the british taxpayer those people down there and he pointed at the window and said and he was paid for by those people and Margaret Thatchers stole it from them and it wasnt hers to take and it isnt yours and its a new and you know ill call it when im like really on the guard has slid away defeated and i thought and since then coming these and use have been percolating through my head it eventually has become this book well today in 2020 amidst a pandemic we have a successor he would think to Margaret Thatcher certainly one of his heroines Boris Johnson and hes never been more popular according to the polls during this pandemic i should say to our viewers this book is not negative about this country despite as you suggest there what happened after that you know the 79 tell me about how much this book is infused with a love of britain. Yeah no its not a its not a nancy british book at all i prefer to think of myself as billy bragg calls it is a progressive patriot but there is a difference between being a patriot and agreeing we want to tap into this country for the last 40 years maybe even half century which i considered to be essentially and fundamentally unpatriotic i think thats a revolution of 79. 00 and it was a revolution in 79 with the revolutions in some way they had a massive revolution in iran and we had a massive revolution here in this country that we didnt recognize it as such i think it was a fundamentally anti patriotic anti british revolution because it said there is no such thing as society in the common bonds of humanity between us are not really as important as profit and he said that individuals often dont paint yogic individuals who do not pay their taxes and who live off shore and huge stash their assets offshore it handed the country and its wealth to them rather than the british people so quite the opposite to be known to british folk in this book connects with a fundamental british patriotism about what made this country great and any one of these images country great was a section of the welfare state in 1945 by the most progressive government countrys ever seen so no i do not get quite the opposite i consider the people who inhabit the boardrooms of this company and the offshore companies i consider those to be the real unpatriotic town ok well some phil says the refuge the last refuge of the scoundrel ive got to tell you the book title is this phrase the nanny state and that is a that is a term used when it comes to the Public Sector obviously not being used at the moment during the pandemic where we rely so much on the Public Sector who are dying to save us you think that the nanny state the word itself covers room in the sense people who had nannies thats thats thats very much i mean its a joke in a way but its i think a. The joke with some serious intent i do say the people who complain about in many states are the people who have not eat it is an extraordinary thing that we take this on board i mean we we are seen no i mean were in so much what is the function of a state if not to provide for the well being of citizens i mean and for too long we neglected that in time in thought the state should be some kind of other not existing its all or should be by just facilitating the protection of private property property and them and the smooth transition of money from one bank account to another usually to rich peoples back and i want to reclaim this word that people have never had a nominee in the lives of taken to using and say no lets not what you know the not and stayed the well for us thats a phone call it is kind of love made institutional and we have seen not that when the crunch of when we are when we face a really serious serious national and International Crises the people who we put our faith in the people we look out not. Reasons of the borgia they have been the 1st people to bleat and to give up that in fact as we see every day its the n. H. S. From work it is delivery drivers it is refuse collectors it is all these people the people whove been cleaning let these people pretty patel says our own skilled workers well now we see that they are fundamental and i wonder if its too romantic an optimistic that will see some fundamental realignment and rethinking of our society but i do think we will change i do think youre not going to hear quite the rally pretty patel dismissing people who make less than 25000 pounds on skilled i do not think you will see quite the same relish in the attacks on state institutions and i certainly dont think youll see any day soon conservative politicians applauding themselves in the house of commons for refusing nurses a pay rise. That would not be a very good look at all i think in the coming months and years i want to get on to some of the things you show that we have lost as a country since 979 but the story politicians of course disproportionately were educated there why is it so important because certainly Jeremy Corbin the outgoing labor leader didnt want to abolish into why is it as obvious but as the manifesto said anywhere the election why should we abolish eton. It is the fundamental. Schism in British Society i think. It is both emblematic of everything thats wrong with this country so if you just concede is a purely symbolic act getting rid of those places where people will be useful but i also think you cannot ignore the day to day practical repercussions of that the fact that. In a country where a black 6 percent of people 6 between 6 and 7 percent of people we think are privately educated they comprise a majority of High Court Judges the majority of officers in the british army the majority of journalists across the board so even in the liberal papers regard the journalists are privately educated the b. B. C. When John Humphrys left the b. B. C. Today Programme Many people applauded because they thought he was an old rightwing kerman thats maybe the case but he certainly his leaving left that program less democratic because not every single radio 4 use presenter is privately educated a 1st step any government should say if we want to see. You know how to Fairer Society is absolutely overnight abolished it will be skills i cannot it seems to me so selfevident and yet to say to people think you some a hugely ridiculously communistic thing to say it seems like we british love play this play pleasure declare an interest that i was a i was wrong umphreys producer at the at the b. B. C. Do you think then that because of all of that we have a tribute saying all. All of the history that you so romantic really talk about in the book by people like. The people that are doing the press coverage is about coronavirus because their patriotism is very different to that in this book you know i dont i dont judge i dont want to you know demean or join in but if the person insulting i dont doubt it sometimes they think they are doing what they think is the best in the circumstances but preservation at all costs of this system as it stands preservation at all costs of an elite of an establishment of of of inequality is what they are about it having said that i do think its interesting i think johnsons an interesting case in point hes certainly not an idealogue i thought you i mean he may well be i mean some people suggest hes simply a game plays in this self aggrandizement and a bit of fun he certainly is not an idealogue the fact she was and i think thats why weve seen already this. Really soon x. Enterprise in endeavors and suggestions have been warmly welcomed and seem very conservative because theyre not like the conservatism weve been used to for 50 years or so but its interesting in order to get them public on board hes got to embrace very public spirited principles the kind of principles they dont appear in the senate for the welfare state i do not think the page does mean is my pictures and no i dont think genuinely they really want every british citizen to have everybodys interest that they have that of the few and it is their own class and it is their own people that said i do not want i want to jump about my going to be tata zammit my criticism they are faced with unprecedented problems and they are handling them probably as well as they can in some respects maybe economically although we see every day that we the people we see every day that seems to be complete lack of forward planning and lack of community thinking as well well the riches are that of course the chancellor caver Goldman Sachs and a lot of the big. Were throngs of cabinet are associated with supporting privatization of the National Health service has been a struggle about a previous exercise why do you think theyve been able to turn a sixpence so easily and suddenly say they love the n. H. S. That they obviously were so much a part of a privatizing it before this pandemic struck well i think one of the reasons for that seeming vault fanous has been the one of the engine things about these crises as you say about Boris Johnson was hospitalized one of the crises is it has been indiscriminate in your attacks i mean its wrong to beat pain is being felt discriminately as always in these cases the brunt of the pain has been felt by the poorest the most vulnerable that is thats what all the time but this has in terms of its contagion. Affected everyone we have we were all as likely to suffer as anyone else and i think its been the sheer that ubiquity of it and the fact that middle class people and rich Business People will be affected by has made them realize that they have to step up to the place i think of the coronavirus it only affected some poor people who they couldnt see you know in the cities because you hadnt grown felder you in that context what exactly i mean i write about it in the in the chapter on housing in my book i write a program for and said that as a simple many quality you kind of get more point and similarly calls for the rich few miles on earth you had graham fell but i think its been the fact that i dont like graeme felt this contagion if you like has in fact you as the potential to affect everyone i think has meant that. This government has had to be seen to be doing some good because and i say if it had been another graham or something even less public than graham i think it could have been swept under the carpet but this no but this is hitting a lot of people like Richard Branson in the bank balance and i think so i think even the conservative party to us and some of their friends might not come to this on scale you know i maybe this is why theyve got this new found generosity and Community Spirit soon ill stop you there were over youre going to. This short break. The u. S. Economy was booming growing numbers of people were made homeless. You can work 40 hours d in a week and still not have enough to get housing everybody believes america still is the land of opportunity the reality of it is were not financially equality and the lack of Affordable Housing for a living minimum wage gave many people new choice you know thats been a problem with the city always turn to make sure and told me stay away i know mr colton sums up the food that there is no answer because the answer requires at least the most vulnerable or abandoned on the streets to become the invisible comes. Welcome back im still here with the stuart people are watching may have been lucky enough to see the site of tens of thousands of cuban doctors pictures of them helping Different Countries around the world during this pandemic despite the fact that arguably Mainstream Media in this country has not been showing those pictures Boris Johnson used to taught Jeremy Corbyn about cuba and its ally venezuela what why why did you think you were is so important as regards a country like britain because in the book you talk about relations with the relatives of author scargill one of the architects of arguably one of the biggest flashpoints of International Near liberalism in british history his connection to cuba and health well yes in the book i was very keen to do this i should say that i didnt do not know enough of banks to be able to say i would not want to seem to be a cheerleader for the cuban system overall but on one thing. Ive got things right is that Health Care System and i knew virus friend of mine the actress maxine peake. After scandals daughter margaret. With her husband jim actually mine manager had set up a cuban style Health Practice in bonds and i was intrigued by this and went to go i knew nothing about the cuban Healthcare System except that many people said it was apparent and i was brilliant and they have set up they said submission in the middle ninetys tony blairs government came along to try and emulate it because didnt do it properly. Because what they have set of cuban Health Care System is a system whereby there is a health home you go in there and you send documents i feel you know if your little money use writing. Never know when they need specially selected pop goes the hall and see him also if you transpires that when you dont really want to happen if youre feeling depressed then there is someone you can help you know mentally healthy shes the idea is that its a one stop shop its 24 hours and again im not a medical im not a healthcare professional im not a medical sociologist but it do seem to me the. Cuban system of health care as we are seen from the fact in many docs is coming is something we can very definitely learn from because the cuban system stands in stark contrast to our National Health service in a sense which isnt truly universal in fact talk about how the British Medical Association tried to destroy any open National Health service what we were going through other elements of this book why the importance of buses you see this is so crucial i mean libraries british rail the buses i think of the whole the bush is one that just does is show again emblematic and symptomatic of the wrongheaded thinking of 50 years in this country or 40 years at least. Everywhere in britain in everyone remember him except one place the boss is a prime time back in the days when the conservatives are drunk on power looking for want to privatized next i mean. Whatever you think about privatisation i think there are you know there are certain things i say in the book i do not want the state to make my clothes i dont want to state to make my point music i dont want to state to make my career thats fine im happy to leave that to small Business People and entrepreneurs but i do not want. I do not want the private World Private sphere to be controlling my prisons my water supply or my transport and i think everyone going to be some of those conservative privatizations i think maybe some conservatives themselves would agree not that some of them were insane and would run for pure ideological grounds what coming coming flog off next buses no one in britain wants to privatized this it was system that worked perfectly well and what you got immediately afterwards was a cowboy system whereby health and safety went out the window if you go into mansion im down to oxford road the most polluting transport corridor probably anywhere in the world you get now get places that have no job because it doesnt make any profit sense it does not make any fiscal sense to do you know i just its emblematic of the insanity of wholesale privatisation and of course whats the one place in britain that didnt do its london where the buses are still con