SPLOSHITY BYE – Black Lives Matter, protests, PHE BAME report, clips from interviews with Awate, Pauline Akunda at Memorial 2007, Katrina Ffrench at Stop Watch UK, Runnymede Trust, and Maurice Mcleod

Released on Tuesday, June 9th, 2020.

SPLOSHITY BYE – Black Lives Matter, protests, PHE BAME report, clips from interviews with Awate, Pauline Akunda at Memorial 2007, Katrina Ffrench at Stop Watch UK, Runnymede Trust, and Maurice Mcleod

A different episode again but don’t worry, there’s still tons of ire filled gags about people who love statues and horses more than human rights. But also this week, I realised slightly too late just how exhausting it must be for black commentators/artists/writers etc to be asked the same Qs over and over again and rather than get a new interviewee for this week, I’ve put together some clips of past interviews where those same questions were answered over the last few years because not enough ever changes. Plus a look at the PHE report into the disparity of COVID19 risks for BAME people.

Sign the petition for a memorial of those who lost their lives and were oppressed in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:

http://www.memorial2007.org.uk/the-petition-uk-government-build-memorial-to-remember-the-victims-of-the-slave-trade

Awate: https://www.happinessisopenforbusiness.com/

Stop Watch UK: http://www.stop-watch.org/

Runnymede Trust: https://www.runnymedetrust.org/

Maurice Mcleod: https://twitter.com/mowords

LDN BLM VIRTUAL PROTEST FROM SUNDAY: https://www.facebook.com/ldnblm/videos/271349177566868/

OTHER WAYS TO HELP THE BLACKLIVESMATTER CAUSE:

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#

DONATE TO BLACK MINDS MATTER: https://www.blackmindsmatteruk.com/

UKBLM FUND: https://uk.gofundme.com/f/ukblm-fund

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THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • NHS, parliament, Patreon, Pauline Akunda, podcast, political, politics, Priti Patel, Public Health England, quarantine, racism, racists, Runnymede Trust, Sajid Javid, satire, schools, self isolation, social distancing, stand-up, statues, stay at home, stayathome, Stop Watch UK, The Last Skeptik, Tiernan Douieb, traffic lights, UK Lockdown, virus

Transcript

Ep191

INTRO INTRO ABOUT INTERVIEWS

Wotcha. This week’s episode is, like last week’s, a little different. I asked a few black writers I know if they fancied letting me interview them for this show about the Black Lives Matter protest, and I rightly didn’t get any response. I was ignorant of just how sick of talking about it they must be, it was only after I stupidly sent several emails that I read lots of accounts of black commentators, artists and the like saying how exhausted they were of explaining the same shit again and again to white people, when very little has changed in years and years of systematic & overt racism, not just in the US, but here in the UK. I realised that while that while it wouldn’t right for me to speak to someone who wasn’t black about the issue, I had actually asked many previous guests questions on racism in the UK before. So, so many times before in fact, and it has also come up so many times on this podcast when not directly asking them about racism but discussing issues of austerity, education, deprivation, poverty, the hostile environment policy, Grenfell and the Windrush scandal to name but a few, all of which are based on or are disproportionately affect BAME people. I thought the best thing to do this week was go through some of those old interviews and replay select bits about the effects of racism in the UK because it is prevalent here. And it’s not anti-police, or far left extremism or whatever nonsense people are posting online. If you’re not anti-racist, then you’re racist. If you don’t believe that black lives matter, you are racist, that’s straight up how it is. I don’t want to patronise, or overtly preach but if you have made any effort this week to support the protests, or made tokenistic gestures on social media & thought that was enough, bear in mind this needs fighting all the time, in all areas of society, all year round, every year till racism is stamped out. No, I’m not doing enough either but I hope that by reminding the handful of people that listen to this show of some of the times interviewees have talked to me about it over the last four years, it will highlight some of the insidious racism you might be otherwise unaware of. Please do check out the full interviews in previous episodes if you haven’t heard them before. First up, here’s a clip of Pauline Akunda from the Memorial 2007 Campaign, from back in Episode 143 in May of 2019. The whole interview was about the campaign for a statue to remember the millions who died and were enslaved in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, you know, the one Edward Colston was a big murdering part of. You know, the man, the statue of whom in Bristol that was taken down in the protests this week. Pauline is still campaigning for this memorial and I’ve popped a link to the petition in the show blurb again. My usual shouting will kick off after.

CLIP WITH PAULINE AKUNDA

INTRO

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that I promise contains absolutely no bad apples at all, just me being a bit of a cox. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as Prime Minister and man that embraces all definitions of the word lumpen at once Boris Johnson says that protestors deemed to have threatened the police will be held to account, I wouldn’t worry as he has absolutely no idea what that means so I think you’ll all be fine. Johnson urged for people to act peacefully and lawfully to tackle racism and discrimination where ever we find it, so if anyone could let me know where I can report him for his 2004 novel and all his newspaper articles, please let me know.

As hundreds and thousands of people took to the streets to support Black Lives Matter, many Conservative MPs showed that actually they’re more interested in the lives of statues, presumably because they feel a kindred spirit to anything that also has a heart of stone. Protestors in Bristol removed the statue of slave trader and murderer Edward Colston before dumping it into the sea, a frankly long overdue event and an apt conclusion to the memory of a man who’s actions single handedly lead to the deaths of over 19,000 African and Afro-Caribbean people in the 1800s. But so many leapt to the defence of the statue despite years and years of them never once campaigning against pigeons. Former Home Secretary and constant new potato Sajid Javid said that it was not ok and if Bristolians want to remove a statue, they have to do it democratically, unlike Javid who deported many people on planes to Jamaica without even checking if they’d done anything wrong. Current Home Secretary and walking paper cut Priti Patel said that the action distracts from the cause people are protesting about, which I mean it doesn’t because the cause is fighting racism and having the oppressive symbol commemorating a man that look over Bristol just cemented the ingrained racism within our history. If the protestors had, I dunno, removed and dumped one of the big M&Ms from outside M&M World into the sea, then maybe she’d have had a point. Unless it was the green one, because I mean, we all know what his deal is. If anyone knows about distracting from important issues though it is Patel, who’s airport quarantining policy has only come in this week, over three months since the pandemic began. I do wonder if the only reason people coming from countries with a smaller R rate than ours have to provide an address for self-isolation, is so Patel can personally go round and shout ‘go home’ at them. Conservative MP and unfinish clone of Al Murray Ben Bradley said that if we start to judge historical figures by 21^st Century standards we’ll find that quite a few folks were nice, almost as if they didn’t know any better. Yes because you know, in the 1800s when Colston was alive, no one had a clue that killing masses of people and enslaving others was a bad thing, it was just what you did on a Saturday afternoon before throwing your urine onto the streets right? He was just having a laugh. I await Ben Bradley’s campaign for more Hitler statues everywhere because sure by 21^st Century standards he was a horrific dictator but back then he was prob just having a giggle right? A muck about with pals. It speaks volumes that as a movement surges across the Western world to abolish the prejudice that has been rife for centuries, the right wing are more concerned with unwanted tributes to arseholes who have been long dead, but then that is exactly who they get most of their donations from so I guess you have to keep supporters onside. At the London protests on Sunday, graffiti was sprayed on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, adding ‘was a racist’ under his name, prompting a number of fascist groups to get unironically angry, like a gang of bacterial infections weeping over some spilled penicillin.

Before that, it was horse lives matter as a mounted police officer’s steed bolted at the protests on Saturday, causing the rider to be knocked off by a traffic light, the colour of which is unknown otherwise we could determine which of either the horse or person was correct to stay or go. The officer is now fine, as is the horse, but blame has been attributed by the police, government and much of the press, at the protestors who supposedly threw bikes at the mounties, though the footage shows one bike wheeled not very quickly, which wouldn’t have been a threat due to lack of horsepower. The question should really be, why were there mounted police at a peaceful protest and why do we have mounted police at all when its 2020 and they should probably all be on those wanky hipster electric scooters by now? And why is it always horses, whether police or racing that the ruling class care about more than the lives of people? Is it because private schools get them into grooming? Or they like a creature that can be saddled with shit politicians and not complain? More importantly, are traffic lights now allies of progressiveness, stopping police attacks and choosing to give equal time to all colours?

Many have asked questions as to why Black Lives Matter is needed in the UK, when in comparison the US has had police do the exact opposite of their job, with most detective murder shows now requiring the lead role to check the mirror first, then arrest themselves. The President and vocal peptic ulcer Donald Trump spent part of the week hiding in the White House Fuhrerbunker while cops tear gassed protestors, who didn’t need that as they were definitely upset enough already. This was just so Trump could safely cross the road for a photo opportunity at a church, which some churchgoers have criticised, though I think based on history there’s nothing more classic OG Christian than using the bible to justify oppression. Later in the week as reports showed US unemployment falling, Trump said it was a great day for George Floyd, which it wasn’t because was he was murdered by police. It was an incredibly sociopathic thing to say, but at the same time maybe Trump has vague awareness that the only people who aren’t having a shit time under his presidency are those that have already died. He has been talking about a military crackdown because would nothing says calming civil unrest like chucking even more armed people in uniform onto the streets. We can only hope that within seconds of being there, the soldiers will realise the police are the insurgents and realise the only way to bring actual democracy to America is to invade it. It is different here, but not always even if Boris Johnson insists that Britain isn’t a racist country, which must be awkward for him as that means he’s no longer the person to represent it properly. You only need to take all of the weekend’s happenings to know that it is though, as Health Secretary and foam shrimp Matt Hancock was either unaware or couldn’t admit that there are no black people in the cabinet, instead saying there was diversity of thought. Sure, and nothing represents the entire public like 15 different white men called Jeremy, but with one who doesn’t like eggs and another who has 12 houses instead of 11. There is the more violent side of racism here too as shown by mounted police being brought in for peaceful protests and many people kettled for no reason at all, in a situation that while many were social distancing, physically couldn’t once they’d been trapped in. Of course the government were repeatedly telling people not to go to any protest with more than 6 people, which shows massive bias towards the pro-Brexit Marches For Britain & EDL rallies that only ever manage to muster up the man that sits in the corner of the chippy touching himself and the guy on the beach who does karate kicks at pigeons. It’s alright though everyone because Labour leader and Bose stand Keir Starmer stood up for the protestors by saying ‘Nobody should condone the lawlessness’ and ‘the statue shouldn’t come down in that way’. Phew. Forensic stuff there from Keir, the man who’d look at Shrodingers Cat and say it wasn’t his place to say if the cat was there or not, but maybe there should be an inquiry into it. While the Foreign Secretary and Japanese mascot for dithering Lisa Nandy, wouldn’t commit to saying that Donald Trump was racist on BBC’s The Marr Show, which is odd as she’s very good at knowing exactly who of her colleagues in the party are and is happy to tell everyone.

It’s almost certain that the protests will be blamed for a second wave of coronavirus if it happens, rather than the vague instructions by the Prime Minister and his special advisor coughing it up the country. Which is odd as last week they were using Black Lives Matter as the reason not to release the Public Health England report on the effects of Coronavirus on BAME people, saying it was in too close proximity to the protests, which I think is code for ‘it would be inconvenient for people to remember that we’re racist right now’. The report was then released without any announcement the next day, saying that black people and Bangladeshi people in particular are twice as likely to die from COVID but then it omitted a large chunk of information which was meant to explain the effects that inequality has had on this. But much like years and years of the government’s prejudicial policies, that bit was treated as invisible and left out of it altogether.

Not that there’ll be a second wave of course, because as he said last Tuesday, the Prime Minister is now taking direct control of the government’s handling of the coronavirus, and not 3 months too late. It’s hard to know how to take that comment, an admittance that Johnson’s only contribution to the coronavirus pandemic was telling everyone their loved one may die, then shaking everyone’s hands in a hospital just to make sure of it. I’m not saying he’s been asleep on the job, but rumours this week say Johnson regularly has to take 3-hour sleeps during the day, which is not so much a power nap as what you have to do if your battery’s dead and needs replacing. If it’s been this shit without him in direct control, how much worse will it get now? And really if he’s to follow his own advice, which he never does, isn’t the only way to really take control, for him to leave? Is this why airport quarantining is now functional when it should have been back in March because Johnson is only bothering to try as of now? As of now, everyone entering the UK has to self-isolate for 2 weeks, which considering the current state of things, will give you an authentic 2020 British experience. There are exemptions depending on the work you’re doing, if you need to travel there and so on, and if the government actually have any system in place to check up on you but hey, it’s the thought that counts, and much like all the thoughts they have for people who’ve lost loved ones to the virus, they’ve generally come too late to be of any use. The other big new but actually really old for everyone else in the world initiative is for face masks on public transport to be compulsory from next week, which will be great for really confusing and upsetting Islamaphobes. Oh, and lockdown rules say you can’t have sex with people you don’t live with, which is probably why Johnson now has time to actually focus on things. So, it appears the general advice is just what everyone else’s general advice was earlier in the year, but we’ve arrived so late you wonder if it was worth us turning up at all. Johnson said he was proud of the way the country has tackled coronavirus, a comment he made on the same day the death toll hit over 40,000, but maybe that is why he’s proud as that’s double what Edward Colston managed, and he got a statue.

It’s an odd thing to be proud of when it looks like track and trace won’t really be working until Autumn, the only benefit of which will be that by then the virus will have gone and they can dismantle it again, or we’ll all have died from COVID and there’ll only be a handful of people left to call. The UK Statistics authority have written twice to Matt Hancock saying that the government still aren’t making the correct test data available, which the Health Secretary has ignored, instead just insisting that tests have been delivered to care homes on time, even though they may not have actually been taken and could’ve been sent by Yodel and lobbed onto the roof or into a bin of a neighbouring building. In fact, there is less and less transparency of official figures overall, with scientific advisors being scarcely seen at the daily briefings anymore and weekend briefings no longer happening which the government says is due to low ratings though if they really wanted to fix that maybe they should add in forfeits, like other weekend TV so they have to do it while being covered in tarantulas or eating a kangaroo’s balls or something. Failing that maybe just invest in some new writers and a whole new cast.

Matt Hancock has called out for people who’ve had coronavirus to donate their blood and anti-bodies, much like he has done and I can only pity whoever receives them, as they’d no doubt run away from the virus, but say loudly that they’d done all they can and it was a very good job. The Coronavirus R rate is now above one in the North West and South West according to certain studies, but Hancock insists that when all studies are taken into account, including you know, any that aren’t to do with coronavirus and are just about how the number zero works, it is just closer to 1, you know, in the way 1.5 is closer to 1 than 2 and 2 is closer to 1 than 700.

On the day of recording this show, the death toll is now at its lowest of 55 which is good news, but it’s very hard to have any faith that it won’t get worse again when the example that parliament are setting appears to be to queue up to catch Coronavirus with Conservative MPs pushing in to get there first. MPs spent nearly an hour in a bizarre queue system to vote for bringing back physical voting with several MPs saying how bad this set up was, before then voting for it. I suppose there’s no better way to say you represent the public by putting yourself into the high-risk virus situation you’ve subjected them all to. To be fair the Conservatives have eschewed the other British stereotypes of saying sorry, having a sense of humour or in Johnson’s case, making a cup of tea properly, so it makes sense they’re putting all their energy into queuing. Which to be fair they’re already good at pushing their friends to the front of and closing the doors before anyone else gets a chance. Leader of the house and vaudevillian Blair witch doll Jacob Rees Mogg was angry that MPs said they had previously voted online while going for a walk and that’s insulting to democracy, you know unlike lying down on the front bench looking bored, or unlawfully pro-rogueing parliament.

It was clear that this system was put in place because without the Conservatives on the backbenches, Johnson’s non-answers can’t be drowned out by the usual strange braying noises, but it seems the plan backfired within days as Business Secretary and Minecraft avatar Alok Sharma began feeling unwell in the chamber and had to self-isolate with COVID symptoms. Sharma was tested and it came back negative, but we all know that based on the accuracy of the tests that could be wrong. Luckily it should be easy to track and trace everyone he’s been in contact with so they should probably start there. It’ll be hilarious if Mogg’s plan means that actually all the Tories have to self-isolate for two weeks and then Johnson has an even worse PMQs as a result. MPs with underlying health conditions who’ve been told to stay at home, have said the insistence on physical voting is discriminatory and the government u-turned on saying they had to attend, instead vowing to allow them to vote by proxy which means they can make any colleagues they don’t like to go and stand in a big old COVID queue for them.

Boris Johnson is to visit all 27 EU countries in what he calls a charm offensive, though it’ll likely just be the second part of that with a total lack of the former. His aim is to ask EU workers to return to the UK to help the economy, you know the one they’ve been told for 5 years they don’t contribute to and steal all the jobs from. Johnson would be better off selling it as charity or aid work where they can come and have pictures taken with children of small business owners who didn’t qualify for grants. The EU Chief Negotiator & man who always looks like he’s about to ask for Flyfishing by JR Hartley, Michael

Barnier says there has been no progress in EU negotiations on account of the UK government trying to distance themselves from the joint political declaration that they themselves created and voted for, though to be fair, I wouldn’t want to back anything they’d done either.

This week’s rule breakers are Labour MP and man who always has a more empty diary than most actors Barry Gardiner, who broke social distancing rules to take a knee at the Black Lives Matter protests, which his colleague Lisa Nandy condemned as wrong. She’s right, he should’ve waited to break them while queueing to vote in parliament first. It is nice to see an MP break them to protest for other people’s rights though, as opposed to Tory MP and stock photo for my wife took everything Bob Seely who broke lockdown rules to attend a BBQ with the Brexit party chairman and politician in a daytime C5 soap Richard Tice and his girlfriend, journalist by title only and person made entirely of small hate filled triangle Isabel Oakeshott. I mean, it’s one thing to go against all safety precautions to protest for justice, but to do it just to have a sausage with those cunts? I mean, fucking hell. That’s like breaking out of Alcatraz just to go to an All Bar One. What a waste.

And finally, Lord Digby Jones aka how did Bruno Brookes manage to eat Bruno Brookes has proposed spending £100m on a Royal Yacht which he said would provide the country with the moral boost it’d need. Yes what everyone will really get kicks out of as we head into a deep recession after thousands of people have died, is to spend money we won’t have on a big boat we can’t go on, for people who leach off the country, including a non-sweating lying paedophile who’s wanted by the US Justice system. But saying that, if we can put them on it then never allow it to dock again, then I’m all for it, and in the long run it’ll be cheaper than keeping them here. Though god knows what Andrew would get up to on international waters.

INTERVIEW CLIP

Here is a quick clip from my chat with rapper & activist Awate back in 2017. You can find Awate on Twitter @awatemusic and all his tracks, videos and articles at awate.com.

ADMIN

Hey hey, team. How you coping? My agent, sorry, daughter is currently going through a phase where she likes to tell me, or my wife, that ‘I don’t like mummy’ or ‘I don’t like daddy’ then tells us to go away. I’ve been told 6 times today that she doesn’t like me and I’ll be honest, it’s been a blessing as I’ve just sat upstairs working on this show and not had to do any parenting at all. Here I was, naively thinking that all I wanted was the reciprocal love of my most precious child and actually, after three months of lockdown, it’s not that at all, and I hope she does it again tomorrow so I can finish my book. Did you go on the Black Lives Matter protests this past weekend? I wanted to, but I’m still too nervous about the old corona, and that combined with the idea of dragging around a 2 year old who’s just screaming how much she hates us was really not fun. While I was concerned, I fully appreciate and support everyone that went and from what I saw, most people were wearing masks and keeping distance as much as they could till the police did their usual helpful thing of kettling them. I’ve only been kettled once on a protest back in 2011, I can’t even remember what it was for, but I cheekily played the diabetic card and got out early which worked. It doesn’t always work and I’m grateful I found the one policeman who believed my sugars were going low when they definitely weren’t, ha. Its fucking horrible though and scary too, as are mounted police and generally anyone in riot gear deciding you can’t have the freedom to protest anymore even though legally you do. I’m pretty sure it’s called kettling though as all it does is increase the chances of things boiling over rather than playing out quietly & I think the protester this past weekend have been amazingly calm considering. I did watch on Sunday, the full two-hour virtual protest hosted by London BLM and it was amazing and very worth checking out if you have the time, so many good speakers. I’ll pop a link to the video of it in the podcast blurb.

As you’ll have noticed, this week’s ep is a bit different and I hope its ok to reply some old clips, but it’s amazing how the context of them changes or actually, becomes even more important and powerful considering the current everything. It is weeks like this I would like to fold the comedy away somewhere for a bit and just listen to clever, powerful people say brilliant hopeful things rather than try and think up yet again how to describe Matt Hancock’s stupid, stupid oblong face. But hey you’re all here and I ‘preciate it as always and if you weren’t, I wouldn’t unfold that comedy and say things that ultimately in the future when my grandchildren say ‘why is there no water anymore?’ no sorry I mean when they say ‘grandad, what do you do to help the Black Lives Matter movement?’ I’ll be able to say, I sat on my bum, your mum told me she hated me and then I said something very rude about Matt Hancock again because he deserved it. Sigh. Thank you tons this week to somebody, somebody else, Helen, Mark, Kim, Lord Shoreham & Joanne, all of whom have very very kindly donated to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro account, and if you can chuck me a few quid for any of this weekly yelling but with words then please do either there or by joining the patreon.com/parpolbro or this new Acast supporter thing that I haven’t worked out how to do, but it might be on the screen while you’re listening on something. I don’t know, I’m not going to tell you how to do it, I’m not your dad. If you can’t donate, that’s cool, I can’t donate to any of the shows I don’t have time to listen to either, so in which case please do pop a nice review on Apple Podcasts or any of them, or just spread the word on your socials and when you are tucked up next to MPs in the voting queue.

Couple of quick things this week. Thing 1) is there is a new live podcast app called Ramble that will be launching soon and they’ve asked me if I want to try it out. I do indeed. So on Thursday 25^th June at 8pm, I’ll be giving it a go and basically, any of you will be able to call in and chat to me for 30 mins about anything, preferably politics or comedy, and I’ll record it and pop it out as a bonus podcast ep. I think it might be best if I ask the questions and you call in if you can answer them or want to talk about them but we’ll see if it works or not and worst comes to worst and none of you do, I’ll sit upstairs in my room in the quiet for 30 mins not having to parent. I’ll tweet and facebook and all that about this nearer the time too. And second thing, the kids politics show that I was touring pre-pando is up online for free on my own youtube channel. Some caveats though, it’s a show that wasn’t meant to be filmed for release, just to make a trailer from and in fact we did a second show that day that was sold out and better but of course we didn’t film it. Typical. Its also from September 2019 and the show changed lots after that because well, politics did too. But the main structure of it is the same and so if you and any of your young uns fancy a watch, head to my TiernanDouieb youtube channel and it’ll be there and if you enjoy, chuck a few quid to the ko-fi please. Obvs don’t let your kids watch any of the other videos on there or do, if you’d like them to learn some swears.

More interview clips through this week’s show and there’s a little bit in the middle on the BAME Coronavirus report too.

INTERVIEW CLIP

This is the first of two clips from Maurice Mcleod, journalist, former co-creator of the now sadly defunct Media Diversified, a platform for black writers that was so very necessary but couldn’t survive due to underfunding. Maurice is now vice chair for Race On The Agenda, which is a social policy research organisation focusing on issues that affect BAME communities. Here he is from way back in this podcasts history, in 2016, discussing how none of the main political parties then were standing up for black people. So nice to see everything’s changed now then. Sigh. Maurice is on Twitter @mowords.

MAURICE CLIP 1

MIDDLE BIT –

BLACK LIVES MATTER UK – BAME CORONAVIRUS REPORT

The Public Health England report into Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 was released last week, after the government said it would be delayed because they were worried by global events. Which is an odd thing to say when the global events were highlighting prejudice. I mean sure, if the global events were that lots of people’s eyes were going on fire from looking at reports, then damn, hold it back. Otherwise it just really makes everyone take notice and go, oooh its going to say you’ve neglected vast areas of society that we knew you neglected but now it’s in writing.

And it does say that. But not as much of it as it should say and actually, what was released the next day without any sort of notice, hoping that maybe no one would ask about it ever again like the report into Russian interference that no ones bothered with anymore, was all a bit vague. I should also say that it wasn’t just a review into the coronavirus effects on BAME people but a review on the overall disparities, with evidence that its men who make up for 60% of deaths and especially men over 60, with people over 80 being 70 times more likely to die than 40 year olds, just like in, you know everything else in life. Working age men are twice as likely to die than working age woman and children under 15 are basically fine and will own everything when this is all over and good luck to them I say. There’s also a big bit on the geography of the virus, which shows that the South East, North West and London were hit the most, but all areas have had a shitty time. North East has had the least deaths so far, because the virus prob saw Bigg Market on a Friday and thought, holy shit, I can’t defeat that. The section on deprivation shows that the least deprived areas peaked earlier and lower than other groups, probably because there is less flat sharing, less overcrowded spaces when you have a mansion to self-isolate in. Of course, the most deprived areas had more than double the mortality rates in comparison for probably the exact opposite reason.

Then there is section on ethnicity and it’d odd because of bits such as this sentence: People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black Ethnicity had between 10% and 50% higher risk of death when compared to white British. Which is the sort of sentence I used to write in essays at university when I just couldn’t be bothered to analyse things properly. That’s quite a lot of different groups, with a 40% disparity between risk factors, so it’s not particularly helpful to sort of lump them all in together, though that does fit with most of the Conservatives attitudes towards ethnic minorities. Bangladeshi people have twice the risk that White British people do, and the highest diagnosis rates were in Black ethnic groups. This is apparently the opposite to previous pandemics that have often affected these groups less, which means this virus has gone in my estimation from being a socialist leader albeit a violent one who only tackled baby boomers, to one that absolutely does discriminate despite sliding in like it was all equal ops at the beginning. Typical. As it states that this virus disproportionately affects black and ethnic minority groups but when age, sex, obesity and existing health issues are taken into account they couldn’t find any difference in the likelihood of people in different ethnic groups having to go to ICU or dying from COVID 19. So why are so many more black and Bangladeshi people dying? Well the report dedicates one whole paragraph to saying that BAME people are more likely to live in overcrowded households, in urban areas, in deprived areas and have jobs that expose them to higher risk. Also, that they may be born in countries other than the UK which means they have barriers to accessing services they need. And then doesn’t really say what should be done to protect them from it, not even, hey maybe everyone should move to the North East. It doesn’t say that. Don’t do that. I made that bit up. And there have been a number of calls for Public Health England to publish the full details with the Muslim Council of Britain, the Runnymede trust and the British medical association saying that it has been censored and was meant to contain an awful lot more.

You can paint a picture, by looking at the occupation section that lists all the frontline workers jobs that had the most positive COVID diagnoses, many of them jobs that are predominantly BAME people. I didn’t say it was a nice picture that you’d want to put up anywhere. Its more a sad one you’d hide like a Mark Rothko print I bought years ago that six different friends said actually looked like an offensive symbol so now it’s in a cupboard. You can link it to the section on deprived areas too and the later section on care homes as well. But what it doesn’t say is that people of African origin in the UK are at a higher risk than people in Africa, which has a much lower death rate overall than the UK. That is of course for a number of reasons including a much younger demographic and as we know the virus is one of the only things in the world that actively supports the youth, but what it does say is that the reasons for high rates in the UK are social ones, not ethno-specific. The BMA have said the data that’s needed isn’t being shared properly, the risk assessments aren’t being correctly done and a number of BAME organistations have said consultations that they had with Public Health England when they were putting together this report, have been completely omitted. The Conservatives have also refused to speak to any press about why this is the case. So, I suppose the reason why they didn’t want to release the report is because what’s it in it is brutal, but what they’ve left out shows that to the government, black lives don’t matter much at all. Such a shame people noticed eh?

INTERVIEW CLIP –

This clip is from episode 150 in July last year when I spoke to Katrina Ffrench at StopWatch UK who are an amazing independent organisation fighting for fair and accountable policing. If you didn’t hear it at the time, please do go back and listen to the full interview. StopWatch UK can be found at stop-watch.org and on Twitter @stopwatchuk.

MIDDLE BIT 2 –

INTERVIEW CLIP –

This is from a chat earlier this year with writer and research analyst Laurie Mompelat who at the time worked at the Runnymede Trust, where they had just released a report into just who the working class are in the UK in 2020. Do check out the Runnymede Trust who do a lot of work to tackle racism within institutions, at runnymedetrust.org.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. But for all of you who listened all the way through, as the statue of murdering slave trader was pulled down in Bristol during the Black Lives Matter protest this weekend, and thrown into the sea, do you know what the best removal of a political statue was before that? No it wasn’t the long overdue removal of the imperialist, white supremacist Cecil Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town as while that was brilliant, Oxford Uni over here decided to keep theirs to remind any Bullingdon Club members of their values. No, not the confederate general Robert E Lee being removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia which was also removed years after it should’ve been. No actually, the best removal of a political statue was Theresa May’s forced resignation last year. Sadly, she was replaced with an even worse unsculpted lump of idiot clay. You win some, you lose some. More hot pol goss facts next time. Hopefully you enjoyed that one so much you’ll want to subscribe and listen to every episode of this podcast, telling everyone you know to tune in, even the ones who don’t know what a podcast is. Just snatch their phone and add it and hit ‘mark all as played’ as I honestly won’t ever know. If you can give the show a review on any of them pod apps and chuck us a few quid to the ko-fi, patreon or the Acast supporter thing that still won’t show up on mine so who knows if it actually works.

Thanks tons to Acast, my brother the last skeptik, Kat Day and Mushybees.

This will be back next week when Boris Johnson says that ok, he’ll now take proper proper direct total control of the coronavirus situation, before disappearing for 4 months releasing only one Telegraph piece about the Black Lives Matter protests where he manages to include 6 colonial names of African countries and four derogatory terms while asking everyone to fight for equality.

BYEEEEEEE – oh wait… before I go, here’s a final clip from my chat with Maurice Mcleod. I’ve got two clips from our chat because it hit me hard when listening back to it, that we spoke four years ago now, and so, so, little has changed and it needs to. It feels like this protest is bigger than anything before, it feels like there is desire to learn and change from many white people and that the world is paying attention. We can but hope. Solidarity with all protesting for equality.

INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE PART 2