Consent and regulation in reality television

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Political communication is one of the failings of the number 10 operation and they failed again . They should lean in to a bit more of understanding of the challenge here, not just go into complete defensive mode. Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby. Me, Ruth Davidson. And me, Harriet Harmon. And it's been a historic week, ladies. It really has been a histor ic week . And I'm not talking about the historic political week that we've just lived through. No no no no. I'm talking about another historic moment this week because after twenty two long years uh Arsenal have won the Premier League. I thought we were supposed to be a football free pod and Just a la as my son would say, allow it allow it. But also West Ham led the BBC News. I'll have to emigrate. Well, can I just say we have had a message in from Luce uh particularly for you, Beth, and she says, Come on you gooners, with all the shifts you've put in recently, with all the crazy politics going on, I think the universe decided you deserved a reward and so as a fellow Arsenal fan, thank you. So there you go. She appreciates all your hard work and the fact that even though I've been pulling your leg that you were going to bottle it like you've done the last four seasons, you were Arsenal were going to spurs it. I'm going to be gracious and say, well played Arsenal, you did well. Oh, thanks, Ruth. I have to say though, in in true Arsenal style, I might have bottled it because in the fantasy Premier League that I am in.' Theres a lobby one for lobby political journalists and there's a Sky News one. And I was leading the league, but I'm currently in second place on both leagues. And I I I think the person that's going to bottle it this year is Beth Rigby, Beth Bottler, Bottler Beth. Oh no. I actually did ask my boss the other day if I could become the sports correspondent next. He just looked at me and went, it's not your specialism. And I'm like, you wanna bet? You wanna bet? It's not my specialism. Anyway, it isn't really. I know absolutely square sum of not very much. But that's fine. Anyway, we need to move on. Any do we want to talk about that any more, Harriet ? Definitely not . Okay, we're going back to politics because there is no sign of the political drama uh baiting uh this week. Today we're gonna bring you the latest on three uh by elections, and we're going to talk about reality TV because politics has got quite involved this week after an investigation into Married at First Sight. Uh, and this was all about uh the channel four reality TV show, which I have to say, I watch all I've watched all of it. I mean, I I spend a lot of time watching Maths, uh, That's Married at First Sight, the culture, media, and Sport Committee say Channel 4 has serious questions to answer about some allegations that have emerged that are quite shocking from an investigation by BBC's Panorama. So we're going to talk about that. But before all all of that, of that, let's talk about this . The mental reason that we all offense, you're rolling the country, let's be a small . I love our I love our I love our country. I love our country. I love I love I love our country and one of the things about our country is good manners. Not very British. Look, I I want to say something about this because I feel quite strongly about it, and I don't normally uh voice opinions if you like, but I'm going to because after that clip, there were some politicians going onto Twitter and social media sugg esting that this was okay, it's not okay. I and I actually feel really strongly like politicians coming in and trying to defend that sort of behaviour. I mean, that's effectively if he wanted to remonstrate with her about policies he didn't like or have a conversation with her, she's there. But what I saw was someone shouting abuse at someone uh in a way that I don't like, I find it un upsetting . I think it's a really dark road to go down, and I think politicians need to come together from all political sides to say that's not okay. Like she does not deserve to be abused while she's doing her job. Not no one deserves that. Okay, so that's a much harder line than actually Harriet and I were talking about when we were chatting about this before. Um and and we weren't justifying it, we weren't saying that these guys were right to do or anything like that, but we were just saying that we've both had worse. We've both had a a lot worse in terms of having dogs set on you or some of the people that you're out campaigning with, in terms of being called all of the things under the sun, in terms of uh being personally chased down the street with somebody trying to swing a bicycle chain at my head. And Harriet, you know, and and I've only been at this game for fifteen years, and Harriet's been at it for fifty years. So I mean Harriet, you were you were telling your war stories as well. Again, a a lot worse than anything I I've seen out on the trail. There's been a kind of sense in the past that as politicians we have to kind of soak it up. You know, that the voters are always right that you've got to like listen and explain and discuss . But actually, I think you're right, Beth, that there's got to be a line drawn, and I'll tell you why. It's not because just of the kind of threatening s situation for the the MP, but it's also about the voters' rights. Because when the voters vote, they are entitled to have the MP do their job without fear or favour. It's the voters' right to put somebody in parliament and for that person into parliament to do their job without being actually harassed. Obviously, people are entitled to free speech. Obviously people need to express anger and discontent, but there is a dividing line about about threatening this. When I was in the Pink Bus Campaign in the general election about women's votes and what you know the government should be doing for the women in women in the future. We had the Fathers for Justice campaign against us and every time we stopped in any different constituency, because we'd said in advance on social media where we were going , there would be a wall of men with loudspeakers right in our faces, so we couldn't be heard, and the women who were supposed to be coming to meet us, they just didn't want to get involved in that sort of bust up . So there's a point at which these people are closing down democracy. For me, watching that, it's sort of I just take it even out of politics in a way. And what I mean by that is, be it Farage , having a milkshake thrown over him, I absolutely hated that. I thought it was terrible. And you know, and then watching Rachel Reeves on that forecourt, and sh I thought she handled it pretty well. The thing that sort of made me feel like I wanted to talk about it on the pod was I I I think that it's really important that people just call out bad abusive behaviour, whatever the party. And what what I found I was a bit dismayed about was that other politicians were somehow I saw a few examples of people kind of somehow uh justifying this behaviour. You're a you're an elected M P, you probably have loads of abuse as well, and somehow you're kind of saying it's okay or justifiable for a guy in a van to drive past the Chancellor and call her a piece of shit. I mean, she's a mum of two kids, she's out doing her job. She doesn't deserve that. Nigel Farage doesn't deserve a milkshake over him. Whatever you feel, it's just it's just basic behaviour. Like and I think if as a society, I don't mean to get all high-minded about it, but as a society, I think it's like really important that you go, it's not okay to behave like that towards other people, whatever. When the um when the Joe Cox Foundation started more in common and it started off as as showing that actually levels of aggression, con um sort of adversarialism, etc., um, was demonstrating to the country that that other people look from other political tribes are kind of fair game. And the whole point about the More in Common Foundation was to show that we have more in common no matter what colour of rosette you wear, no matter which person you're going to vote for for prime minister, then what what what you know keeps us as different? You know, there there there may be is a renewed effort that needs to come, if not from that organization, from another, that then says, you know, we can say things are wrong and, you're right, you know, that sort of language isn't okay, Beth. Um, and we can all have our war stories about stuff that we've faced and we've got through, and you know, there's sometimes it felt pretty hairy out on the trail, but we kind of got past it, and you go, phew. And that's not okay either. You shouldn't actually feel intimidated doing your job. Um but we also have to maybe do something about it. What do you think can be done about it? I I remember certainly um in Scotland we had all the party leaders, I was part of that. We were demonstrating to do you, know, doing joint things to demonstrate that whatever our divisions were over things like the Constitution, over Brexit, that sort of stuff, really big dividing lines in Scotland, that that we could still recognise that that there had to be good faith in listening to each other uh uh uh and disagreeing agreeably as far as possible and doing it in a parliamentary way. Um and for some reason over the 10 years it it's just seems to have sort of fallen away a little bit and and you know that, doesn't seem to happen as much. So it's about sort of not just telling people what they can and can't do, it's showing people how they should act. So it's that that leadership by example, um, which which has sort of fallen away again. And it and it might be because it's there's a rise of kind of populist left and right. And I think that the social mediaization of politics generally over over a period of about fifteen years, actually, um if you think about when kind of Twitter started and stuff, um has coarsened the debate I was at a meeting of Labour women MPs and so many of them have got cases where people are going through the courts because they've crossed the line of criminal behaviour, of threatening and uh you know, behaviour against them and when they're just doing their work as MPs. And I think there is a real case for punitive sentencing because these people are not just threatening the individual, they are threatening democracy. So I'd like to see this put in the bigger picture. I'd like punitive sentences so people get the message. You behave yourself, you vote, you have freedom of speech, but you are not to try and get your way by mob activity. I don't think politicians should get special treatment in that sense. I actually think that you know the behaviour should stop. So the sentencing should reflect the behaviour. It shouldn't it shouldn't the behaviour is aimed at, if you know what I mean? But a message has to be sent that this sort of offending is not just against the individual, it's against the hold of our structures of democracy. So I know you don't want we don't want special pleading for MPs, but we've got to stand up for democracy. I think one place we can start though is to call out bad behaviour. And I just felt on this pod this week I wanted to say that whatever politician you are from whatever party and whatever your views, I don't think anyone deserves to be yelled at in that way, and I'm sorry that you guys also have that in your your daily jobs. Well there's gonna be upping of the temperature in one part of the country in the north west of England, isn't it? Let's get there, let's get to the north west.. Yeah, yeah Um well exactly. I mean, if you've been watching the news this week, and even if you haven't, you've still probably absorbed at by osmosis that there's a by-election in Makerfield. Andy Burnham uh is hoping to get into Westminster. But there are actually more than one by-elections that are happening to Westminster in June. We've got two in Scotland as well, one in Aberdeen South and one in our broath and Broughty Ferry. So it wouldn't be me if we didn't give you a bit of information on all three. You know I love special pleading for Scotland. Uh but we are gonna start with the focus on Makerfield and the impact that that's had on the community there because we had a great voice note on the burner phone. This one is from Sharon. I have lived in Makerfield, Ashley Makefield, literally all my life. Um I'm thirty-nine. I have older teenagers now who live here. I work here, I was brought up here, my kids go to school here. Um and my family live here and it's a town that I love and with everything that's going on at the minute, I'm really worried. So I guess one of the things that I've really noticed is that we've become a media circus this past couple of weeks. We're only a small town in Ashton Makefield and it seems like the press uh are really kind of coming here every day. So I work on a shop that's on the main high street, and pretty much every day there is some camera person and somebody with a microphone outside um trying to grab people off the street and then later on I'm going home and then I'm putting the news on and I'm seeing these interviews of people who sometimes I know because I've lived here and everybody knows everybody. I switch off the TV, go to bed, doom scroll, and my social media is just filled with targeted adverts , um news clippings, opinions from every man and his dog, and we're not it's not even started really, has it? It's not even started and um I'm already um kind of overwhelmed. Thanks for sending that in, Sharon. And um I can imagine you are overwhelmed because it is a by-election, but it is part of a massive national story and potentially an international story as you were saying, Harriet, because if Andy Burnham gets that seat and he challenges Keir Starmer, there are many steps to go, of course, but he could become quite in short succession the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So you in Maker Field up there in that constituency, uh you are part of a national story. And actually, um, I'm probably going to come and knock on your door as well, Sharon. But rest assured, I actually know your patch of the world very well because my mum was born uh in Oral. I lost my mum many years ago. She's buried up there. Um, my aunt still lives there, uh, my cousins live there. So I have uh very warm uh childhood memories of spending a lot of time up in Oral and I know that bit of the world very well. So I'm I am going to come up, Sharon, but rest assured, um I'm also going to come up and see my aunt and my cousins. So it's going to actually be quite nice for me because I try and go and see everyone when we go to Manchester for party conference so um I do know that bit of the world very well and uh it is such uh unusual by election and you are gonna be I'm afraid Sharon in the middle of a media circus for the next f few weeks. She is, isn't she, Harriet? She certainly is. I think th this is gonna be an extremely, as you said Beth, an extremely unusual and consequential by-election. It's gonna happen on June the 18th because usually a parliamentary by-election happens if the MP dies or you know is chucked out for bad behaviour or something happens and this is very different. This is the MP who's only just been elected in 2024, standing down and therefore creating a vacancy for the sole purpose of enabling Andy Burnham, who's the mayor of Greater Manchester of course, to stand as a member of Parliament in Makerfield in order that he can come down to Westminster, in order that he can challenge Keir Starmer and be Prime Minister. And therefore the eyes of the world are watching this because it's very consequential for who's going to be our Prime Minister, as well as obviously for the people in Makerfield wondering who's going to be their Member of Parliament. A lot turns on this by election. So there's going to be a huge pressure on all the people who live there. Yeah, so I've been a by-election candidate in quite a high profile by-election. So it was the last one in two thousand and nine before the 2010 general election, and it went on for months and months and months. And I can completely understand what Sharon is going on about because I was in Glasgow Northeast. Now Glasgow Northeast is has one of the lowest life expectan cy rates of any constituencies in the United Kingdom. It has nearly 40% of children living in it in poverty. It has a very high economic inactivity and unemployment rate. It has a lot of of problems, but it is a proud people. And the way that, you know, the anger that lots of people being bust up from London to look at this place to sort of talk about what that would do for a general election in sort of five, six months' time, and almost prodding people like zoo animals and you know talking about how it was more deprived than than you know Syria or parts of Africa and stuff like that. And also just some of the kind of just just the lack of knowledge as well, was just staggering of like we've read this thing on Wikipedia, so we're now going to extrapolate 16 million other things and stand on the nightly news and talk about it. Um, was just, you know, it really misunderstood and it misrepresented some of the kind of of real working class pride in Glasgow North East, which had at at some point been, you know, a cradle making a quarter of all locomotives in the world. So, you know, it I it that really stayed with me, just that the local anger and the anger from the candidates as well. That there was just this wilful misunderstanding and representation. I mean it must be very irritating when you live up there and everyone's as you said coming up and they're all you're on the national news and everyone's pontificating about your home and the place you live and what it signifies and you're kind of maybe feeling a bit detached from that or it's not relating to you. But the argument has become if we don't replace Keir's amongst some, if we don't replace Keir Star mer, we're going to let reform win because they don't think Keir Star mer is the right leader to take on the appeal of Farage and reform, right? So then if Andy Burnham in an area where uh reform just won heavily can sort of upend that momentum and win the seat and beat reform, he comes down to Westminster from Makerfield and he can say , I can beat reform. I'm the guy that can beat reform. If UMPs are worried that we are going to lose the next election to reform, come with me. And so this is why um Sharon , when you're like why is everyone here, that there's all these national overtones of this this this by-election, not just about whether uh who becomes the Prime Minister, which is incredibly important to everyone across the country, but also what it says about politics and the the the strands between Labour to reform and these battle lines that are building up towards a general election. It's actually for me professionally it's fascinating because this by-election is telling sort of national stories overlaid on you know an election of of of quite a small population really, so in a way. It's a massive deal this by-election, isn't it? For the people voting in it. And rest assured, I know we've been talking uh a lot about what's going on in Makerfield, we do have a full list of candidates that are standing in that election that are in our show notes. So you can look at them and see everybody that's standing from all the different parties. Also, before we move on away from by-elections, I want to talk about the two that are going on in Scotland because I promised I would talk about them. They're also linked to something that's going on in the national picture and the national news, particularly the Aberdeen South by-election. That's the seat where Stephen Flynn, who used to be the Westminster leader of the SNP, got elected to Holyrood,, uh along with Stephen Gethens, who was an R. Broth and Brottifer MP. He got elected to Holyrood as well at the recent elections a couple of weeks ago. Uh you can't double hat, so you can't be an MP and an MSP at the same time. You used to be able to, now you can't. It's expected that Stephen Flynn will challenge to become the new first minister of Scotland whenever John Swinney decides to step back. So there's a there's a bit of, you know, personal ambition going on there about who wants what job in politics and why it's causing by-elections. But the key issue that's going to be developed in Aberdeen South is that of oil and gas. And it's no surprise to me that Kemi Badenoch, because the Tories uh are only four thousand uh votes away from taking that seat from the SNP, went really hard on that at at Prime Minister's questions this week. And this idea of you know having relaxations uh on sanctions of Russian oil and Russian jet fuel, uh, but banning future North Sea exploration and development, you know, expect to see, I would expect, a lot more of that in the next six weeks uh as the Tories are in the fight in Aberdeen Northeast as well, because there's a a huge impact that scaling down North Sea oil production has had up there. So there are real concerns up there about what's happening. And not only with the drilling side, but also the supply chain side as well. So you've seen Grangemouth, the oil refinery in central Scotland, close along uh with one of the others. There's two of the UK's six oil refineries have closed in the last two years. And Grangemouth made ninety-seven percent of all Scotland's jet fuel. It it was a jet fuel refiner. And one of the things that's also happened in the Commons this week is to do with uh you know um having a relaxation uh on on sanctions on Russian derived oil being refined in other countries that can be used for jet fuel. Just on this, because I was I was on the television covering PMQ Prime Minister's questions and there was all this confusion around what the government were or weren't doing around oil uh sanctions on Russia. And uh what had happened was on Tuesday night uh something was put out by the civil service so it's just like dropped out, it wasn't announced, it wasn't particularly clear. And what it looked like was that the government was uh temporarily easing some restrictions on the import of Russian oil that was that was processed in a third country. And then, of course, Cammy Bade not comes to PMQs and goes nuts saying the Prime Minister should be ashamed of himself and he's funding the Putin war machine and he's easing sanctions. And then the Prime Minister went, No, I'm not, I'm toughening sanctions. And then I got really confused, as did to be, I was slightly comforted by Ed Conway, our economic s editor, was also said because he's a real expert on this stuff. He's like, yeah, I'm trying to work it out. Actually what had happened was the government overall was bringing in a tightened sanction package, but there was this carve out uh for for jet fuel and for diesel and and these are temporary license easing and it could get tightened up again but obviously they're very worried about short-term supplies of of jet fuel and and diesel uh because the Strait of Hormuz uh is still closed. Um but but yeah I mean have have I understood that correctly Harriet? I think you're a anybody watching, you're absolutely right. Anybody watching Prime Minister's questions would be absolutely none the wiser. I think the position is that the government uh a short while back announced a toughening of sanctions and what they're bringing in is tougher sanctions, but not as tough as they originally said they were going to be. And during the course of all of this, the Ukrainian government came out and said, Why are you weakening sanctions? But they're not actually weakening sancti ons, they're just weakening them compared to how much they were going to strengthen them, and then by the end of the day the Ukrainians were happy again. But I think that it is an issue about the government with clar ity and consistency, getting the message across and making sure everybody understands it, including the opposition, because actually there's been bipartisanship on sanctions about Ukraine and about all things Ukraine hitherto. And that really needs to work be worked at because we need to keep that bipartisanship. But I think the problem the wider problem here is you know there was a story that the government could have told about why they were introducing it in set pieces, why that actually until after the summer because of I don't know worries about people's holidays or whatever it was, there was a story, a political story to tell, but they didn't. And it just reminded people on a week where actually the Prime Minister has looked a little bit safer and has had a stay of execution, it just reminded all of his backbench MPs who were left on the airwaves being questioned about this with no information, no s political narrative, no background briefing, nothing to be able to say, completely caught in the hop. Just reminded them all that Keir Starmer's quite crap at the politics of politics. And political communication is one of the failings of the number 10 operation and they failed again. I have to say, as someone whose job is to try and explain what the government is doing to the public, I was caught out in that moment, and it took me to question an MP that was on our panel to actually get clarity about that yes there is a carve out because Keir Starmer was totally confusing, told Kemi Baden ok she was wrong and it was a mess, wasn't it, Harriet? What did you think? Well, I think that you know that the the bottom line is you've got to after Prime Minister's questions be able to understand what the government's position is in order to be able to understand it, in order to be able to support it, if you're a backbench MP or if you're a minister from another government department. And also we do want bipartisanship on Ukraine. So you would hope before something like that there would be discussions with the Leader of the Opposition's Office in order to get them on board for it. But the irony is that there are quite a few good things that have been happening, but they seem to be being overshadowed by by the the issues like Ruth has referred to. So for example, being on the economy, good in growth and inflation figures, on the NHS, good weightingness, on immigration, really astonishing figures on the cuts in small boats and in asylum hotels and the drop in legal migration. So that's all the sort of positive stuff that's come out. But on the negative side, we've got the Iran prospect with the inflation coming down the road, we've got Trump meaning we've got a massively ramp up our defence spending. We've got reform causing division and insurgency. And into that we've got political instability nationally as well as the global instability. So you know there are some good things there that could be built on and should be built on, but there's also a lot of bad things alongside it. But the good things had just been completely blotted out. On the comms as well, the Prime Minister actually came to PMQs with a good story to tell because they were freezing fuel duty by five pence for another three months. So he actually came to PMQs armed with Arsenal had won and he mentioned. He was in a very good mood. You could see that was a happy Prime Minister. I was like, wow I mean come on, the guy needs to have one like one chink of light in the storm clouds for him there over the Emirates. Anyway, uh the light shining down. Um stop . Stop now . I've amused myself. Uh I'm just sort of imagining a really moody sky and then the Emirates with the light shining down. It's really nice. It's a nice image. But all other football supporters are on other teams, are part of the cloudiness. Sad, sad for them. Um but but uh going back I've lost my train of thought. Sorry, he came with a good story stone. Yeah, he came to a good story stone, then it was completely overshadowed by what the hell was going on with the sanctions regime. But I also think, Ruth, that you are onto something with this um this question about North the North Sea because if you have a Prime Minister saying everything has changed, the world is becoming less secure, we have to rethink all the things we were doing. And then you have a country like Norway that's increasing production in this region because of energy supplies, and we are in a situation as a country where we are more dependent on external energy sources than other European countries who have, for example, in France built massive nuclear energy capacity. I mean, you can see the argument. It makes sense to go, do you want to try and increase production in the North Sea and maybe you do want to explore some of the basin and that doesn't mean that you don't want to also increase the green energy, but are you cutting off your nose to spite your face? But we we don't actually use the oil we produce. We s the pr the production of oil is then sold into the world market and we buy it from the world market. It's not as if there's a pipeline that goes into our own energy supplies That's the argument Labour wants to take into the Aberdeen South by election. I'll be delighted because there's eleven thousand Labour votes that Tories are going to try and squeeze on the oil and gas issue. So if the idea is we sell some of our oil so we shouldn't produce any oil. You guys crack on cause that'll help us immeasurably the next six weeks. So it's gonna be a big pitch for Kemmie Baden ok and the Tories in Scotland and Ruth and the people in the minibus. They're gonna put a big fight um in Aberdeen uh and that is going to be a big focus in Scotland, isn't it, that by-election? But so for context, the minibus chat is because I was telling uh Harriet and Beth before we came on air that I've hired a minibus because I'm I'm old enough that my driver's licence allows me to drive a seventeen seater. So what is this was the most exciting news apart from Arsenal winning the premiers Ruth is driving a seventeen seater across Scotland. Be afraid. Tell the world. Tell the world about the m the mini bus rules so that everyone listening knows whether they can or can't. Just tell 'em. So if you passed your driving test before the first of January in nineteen ninety-seven, you are automatically entitled to drive a 17-seater. So that's use the driver plus 16 passengers minibus, as long as it is shorter than eight meters. So that's the equivalent of a long wheel-based transit or other. And believe me, you can live out all your long distance Clara fantasies from Pigeon Street driving a minibus. Because I've done it on hen weekends before. That is literally the best piece of information Ruth Davidson has ever given me. I am like, what you what do you mean I can I've been able to drive a minib us for 30 years or something and I haven't done it? I'm so excited. I mean it's completely reconfigured all my future life really my mini bus I love it chase is the digital bank that gives your savings a boost. Anymeti, anywhere. Even when I'm busy at work. You bet. You could earn 4.5% AER variable, including a 2.25% AER fixed boost for 12 months. Right now with Chase, you could be boosting your way to A new kitchen . Exactly. Search Chase Boosted Saver. 18 plus UK residents. Available to new Chase Current Account Customers for their first 31 days. 4.41% gross. Interest pay monthly eligibility and term supply. You know what I love about Eurostar? The comfortable seats with lots of leg room. You know what I don't love? Playing hide and seat with my feet. Or playing footsies with my neighbour. Ouch. Sorry. Now that I'm on the Eurostar, the only game I'm playing is stretchy stretchy leg leg, and I always win. That's the ticket. Eurostar, together we go further. Okay, we are back and we're gonna talk about reality TV . Um, and I have to admit that um this show, Maths, is something that I have been enthusiastically watching. It's been a bit of a guilty pleasure with m myself and my teenage daughter that we we watch maths. We watch maths UK, we watch maths Australia, we sit and discuss maths uh quite a lot. I've never heard it called maths before. That's literally what it's called. Oh right, okay. Well I mean it's literally Married at First Sight, and then it's one calls it maths. Uh and also I'm not the only reality TV fan, am I Harrow? Because we also found out on this pod recently an,other piece of sensational news for me, as well as the minib us, which is that you uh like keeping up with the Kardashian. I do, and there's there is something really gripping about reality TV, isn't there? You know, whether it's strictly, whether it's Love Island, um, whether it's these, you know, Master Chef, that that ordinary people can be absolutely gripping television, but there are dangers, as math has found out. And and that's why we're discussing this. And I have to say, when I I saw this story, I was really shocked. And then I felt terrible that I'd watched it with my daughter, if I'm honest. Because what was , you know, meant to be kind of a fun, humorous uh reality television show, it turned out that two women who took part in this Channel 4 series, uh, Married at First Sight UK, have said that they were raped by their on-screen husbands. And another woman, uh, Shona Manderson accused her partner on the show, Brad Kelly, who denies any wrongdoing of sexual misconduct. Two two of the women were anonymous, one went on the record. And I found all of this really deeply shocking and just very , very upsetting when you've watched these programmes and enjoyed it as some light reality television and then there's this sort of underside to it which is really dark. If you haven't watched Maths, Married at First Sight is literally what it is in that uh they have experts that team up people that they think will be compatible both in attraction, like what they like physically, but also much more importantly, actually, really, it's about trying to team up people that have personalities that will work and they do this experiment to see if you you know you meet at the altar and then you begin a marriage and does that marriage work and does that marriage uh last? I mean it really throws into question the whole concept of consent and really poses a challenge for the people who are commissioning and producing these shows. And I've been really thinking so much about this because it's part of the paradox of the movement of women's sexual liberation. So back in the day, there was an assumption that women didn't like sex, that it was something visited upon them by m by men for the purpose of procreating children, and the women's liberation movement said no, women are sexual beings, they they do want to have sex but in their own on their own terms and they can actually um enjoy sex. And then that spawned a whole backlash against women. So for example, you have men standing up in court saying yeah I did strangle her uh and she is dead but actually it was rough sex that she wanted and it's got gone wrong. So that the the sexual liberation that women have fought for and won is now being used against them. So these women are being put in a situation where it's well you're up for it because women are up for it and finding that actually they're not up for it, but the whole context is one which is where the notion of consent has all been distorted. So I think there's got to be a really big ideological hard think about where TV programmes are going with this sexualiz ation offer on on these reality TV programmes, which you know, as, you say you watch it, absolut with your daughter. I I watch Love Island absolutely gripped and Do you watch Love Island? Yeah. I didn't know. I did not know that happened. I do but I do but I do I do have to uh we do have questions and wider questions like there is a question about women's autonomy and where we as women want to end up and whether or not every time we take a couple of steps forward , we then find that we lose control of the situation and we don't end up where we want to be. So I have to say I'm not a big married at first sight fan. Um my wife watches it and and when Jen's watching it, I occasionally kind of walk in the room and it's on and I can I can basically sit and tolerate the Australian one, which I I weirdly I don't know why I find more interesting, but I've never really been a big fan of the British one. But I I think the really difficult thing that I have in all of this is that one of the two anonymous women that came forward, um, Beth, claims that she told both Channel Four, who broadcast it, and she told CPL, so that's the cup production company that makes the program about allegedly being raped before the program was aired and they put it on air anyway. And I think that's one of the things that the culture, media, and sport committee are are really looking at because they've written to Channel 4, they've written to Ofcom, which is the regulator . And we've talked about Carolyn Dinage before she's a Tory MP. She chairs uh the DTMS committee. She's a bit of a force of nature, actually. She's very good, yeah. She's very good. And she has saying that they've got serious concerns over whether enough is being done to protect people taking part in reality television and also wants to know who knew what and when. Because I think the type like, I mean, obviously this is horrific. You know, we we accept all of that. But the timeline is also important about whether the concerns were disregarded and stuff was aired anyway. And I have a little bit of background sort of slightly to the side in this, and that I spent a couple of years chairing ITV's mental health advisory group, which was born out of some of the issues that ITV had had with some of the programs that they had aired. So, for example, somebody committing suicide after being on Jeremy Kyle, some of the issues that had come out of Love Island. Um, Dr. Alex was on the advisory group or or helped the advisory group who'd been a Love Island contestant. Uh and as well as looking after mental health of of people that work within the television industry. It was also about contributors to it and contributors to reality television and people who are not equipped. They're not people that are normally famous. And then they suddenly get thrust into the public eye and what those pressures are uh and and what can be done to safeguard them. But there are some questions about what the point of the programme is. And if you have, I don't know, a show called Love Island where they send you off to Casa Amore so you're not with other people and it's called the castle of love. And there's, you know, there's you know, they're they're putting you there together when you're in a couple. I I mean, I think there's an unwritten question about whether they're wanting you to have sex on television. So they can show people having sex on television. And I think there is a question mark about how ethical or otherwise that is. But I think again, what's what's very different is the idea of taking people who've never met each other, putting them complet ely isolated, as Marriage as First Sight does, which is actually, I would say, quite different from Love Island, but you're actually putting people on a honeymoon then in an in an apartment just the two of them you're completely isolating them in a bubble and do you know I I think there's going to be a huge look at whether this format is sustainable not just in the UK, but anywhere. Well I think Ruth's absolutely right about that. And of course, social media amplifies the pressure on these people. It's not uh on these women who are involved in these shows. It's not just the people who are watching it at the time they're watching it. It's actually all the social media that goes on and on and on afterwards on them just as individuals. And there is this construct, well, if you're having sex on the first date from Tinder, why shouldn't you actually be having sex on the TV programme and all that pressure. And I think it you're absolutely right. There's got to be a big think-through, not just uh from the Department of Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee, and and Caroline Dalage, the Tory MP who chairs it, I think, is absolutely excell ent. But also Ofcom, the broadcaster's regulator, and also the creative industries complaint system that is chaired very ably by Baroness Helena Kennedy, but I hope, and this is my hope, that the broadcasters will not get defensive and say, Oh, but these women didn't complain to the police. I hope that they will actually step back and think, well, this what are we doing to somebody's daughter, somebody's potential wife? Let's really think about this. So I really hope that they will respond in a thoughtful and mature way and not just get into their trauma Are you both suggesting the upshot of this is there needs to be closer regulation of this rather than just uh assuming that broadcasters or production companies kind of work on good faith. A big think and then closer regulation. I think we so we've seen regulation. So we saw Ofcom bring in new rules about monitoring and supporting the mental health well-being of contestants during production and after it. And that was set up after the suicides from Love Island and from Jeremy Kyle. So we have seen a change. But if if all of these allegations are true here, that change clearly hasn't worked. So I think I think there is a litmus test that has to be used about what's what's encouraging, what's otherwise. And I think, you know, there's a broader question here as well . You know, marital rate was only recognized as a crime in the 1990s. Like it's it's that recent, you know? And there was a a sense that before that that within marriages, if you were married, it was kind of your marital duty to have sex with your husband And I'm not sure and we've talked about this in the show before about changing uh dynamics of relationships and sex and you know uh the the the kind of democratisation of of of really quite sometimes quite hardcore and explicit materials that you can find on your phone and and anywhere else at the touch of a button. And and the changing ideas that different generations have towards sex, actually, whether we have to have a a a bit almost of a public conversation about not just sex and and the idea that women can enjoy it and that and that they're allowed to ask for things and that they can have their, you know, they can have their wants and desires serviced. But but actually what the limits are as well and when you're allowed to say no and when you're allowed to draw that line and what's not to be taken for granted and what's not, you know, what what what isn't just assumed this idea that that consent has to be explicit, not just banked. But also just sort of as a as a consumer as well, you watch this stuff yourself in good faith, you're sometimes watching it with teenagers. It's part of being a parent of a teenager to try and find things that they might do with you, spend time with you. And you do it on the on the understanding that people participating are are kept safe and I I sometimes use my I I I would choke with my daughter I'm like and that is exactly how you should not let someone treat you. I mean I found it quite a useful tool in in in sort of talking to her about relationshi ps in some ways. Um, so I think for the consumer, I mean it kind of puts such a a dark cloud, doesn't it, over something that you enjoyed or I don't feel good about watching it now, and I especially don't feel good about my daughter watching it now because of these allegations and I imagine that there'll be lots of other mums um of teenagers out there that and you know that probably feel the same. Yeah, I I think as well, to be fair to all parties , um, we have to say that we've been given a statement sent to us from Channel Four, uh which Channel Four says MAFS UK is produced under some of the most comprehensive and robust welfare protocols in the industry. These include the most thorough background checks available, a code of conduct which clearly sets out behavioural standards, daily contributor check-ins with a specialist welfare team, and access to additional support before, during, and after filming. Channel 4 believes that when concerns related to contributor welfare were raised through existing welfare and procedural protocols, prompt and appropriate action was taken based on the information available at the time. Channel four strongly refutes any claim to the contrary. Well we also spoke to the production company as well. So that was Channel Four that showed the programs. CPL that made the programs. They didn't respond to our request for comment, but they did say earlier in the week that its welfare system was