Media Coverage and Solidarity

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That's code QDigit, QD I G I T for 10 pounds off your first order over £30 . For full terms, visit the QVC website. Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job. You need the right person with the right background who can move your business forward. If you want candidates who match what you're looking for, trust Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of the show will get a 100-pound sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/slash broadcast. Just go to indeed.com/slash broadcast right now and support this show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash broadc ast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way. With Inde ed. Hi, this is PodSave the UK. I'm Mishka Mart. And I'm KK Khan. Deja Vu alert, Peter Mandelson is back in the headlights. Shock. There's been a fresh release of files and messages which has raised more questions about his appointment and what he really thought of Keir Starmer's government. We will be getting into it all with political journalist Zoe Crowder. Also on the show, a major review has warned that more than a million young people in the UK are not earning or learning. So we'll be asking how Britain ended up with a generation being told to get on in life while the routes to work, training and support have been quietly stripped back. We'll also be looking into the EHRC's announcement that it would exclude transgender people from single sex toilets and changements. We'll be joined by Sabah Chowdrick, speaker, consultant, founder of Trans Pride Brighton to unpack it all . We've got a great show today, but before we get into the meat of it, we want to talk about the news that on Tuesday, Vikram Digwell was sentenced to at least 21 years in prison for the horrific murder of Henry Noak, an 18-year-old So uthampton student. The full horror of Nowak's last moments after the release of police footage showing him pleading for help was only just sinking in when Reform UK served notice that Nigel Farage would be making an emergency address. He paid tribute to the extraordinarily dignified response of the family, but then waded in with remarks of his own, suggesting, I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure cold rage. Politicians are now dealing with the fallout of thuggish rioting after hundreds of people gathered outside a Southampton police station on Tuesday evening. The far right activist Tommy Robinson was among speakers who addressed the crowd. So this is obviously a story that's still unfolding as we record on Wednesday. Henry's father, Mark Nowak, condemned the inhumane and degrading treatment of his son by the police, but added we do not want his death to be used to create further division , hatred or tension. We want his story to help make our streets safer for everyone, which is a response of remarkable dignity uh and restraint by someone who is going through the worst imaginable thing any human being can go through. I can't even imagine what they're going through. And I I I'm I just I wish I wish their powerful words would be heard, even just out of respect for them, like to not increase their pain to have to even worry about this at this time. Um, so in in case uh some of our listeners are not aware of exactly what happened, so Digwa stabbed No ak multiple times, but when police arrived, he f alsely accused Noak of a racist assault due to being a Sikh. Digwer wears a turban, he's visibly Sikh. Officers handcuffed Noak and expressed skepticism when he told them that he had been stabbed and he could n't breathe. He died soon after, despite CPR attempts from the police. On Tuesday, three of the party leaders all weighed in on the case and now post disorder, they've all got a chance to do so again in PM Qs at noon, which is just sort of about to happen as we record. The question is, will the further public utterances by our political leaders influen Keir Starmer has said this afternoon that serious questions need to be addressed, not least about how accusations of racism informed the decision making in this case. Condemn the far right for using the incident to try and create division. The Prime Minister said he felt sick watching footage of the police responding to the attack. Now the calls to avoid division are are not being heeded, at least by a a small minority. A few hundred of those protesting outside of Southampton police station marched to the area where the murder took place and threw bottles and wheelie bins at the police. A line of them were blocking the crowd from entering the street where the killer Vikram Digwa lived. The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood condemned the scenes as completely unacceptable. So two people have been arrested after protesters clashed with the police near the site where the 18-year-old student got he was so young, Henry Noah was fatally stabbed. So the police minister has let us know that. Following the tension, one of the city's MPs, Darren Paffy, the Labour MP for Southampton, itchin said, whipping up violence has no place in Southampton. I really would appeal for calm. Again, we need to stay united as a city. Look, this is a really perilous moment. Um once again, uh a sort of horrific murder is having these kind of appalling knock-on effects that lead to rioting and violence. We were here in the summer of 2024 . It's really, really important that people try and sort of listen to Henry's father, much more so than they listen to people like Nigel Farage. And it's probably worth noting as Ben Quinn, who's the political correspondent for The Guardian, did in an article that was published on the website today, it's probably worth noting that he gave an emergency address rather than a press conference, because Farage has sort of essentially been in hiding from the press because of stories about a five million pound gift he received from Christopher Harborn, who's a cryptocurrency billionaire, and this widely disputed claim that the Russian government has hacked his phone, that he's not provided sufficient substantiation for. I think the phrase pure cold rage is another example of political exploit ation of a tragedy and totally irresponsible language from the leader of political party. It is time that Nigel Farage was assessed by the criteria that he is positing himself as, as in the potential future prime minister of the United Kingdom. And a serious question needs to be asked about whether a man who is exploiting a tragic murder for his own political ends is really fit for office. I I know that people will understand that I have a view on this based on the things that I've said about him in the past . I I really, really seriously think we need to be asking questions of Farage's suitability . Right? That that's the job that he wants. That's what he sees the sort of end game of his political life as being. Is that language or conduct befitting a prime minister? Absolutely, it isn't. He did the exact same thing after the tragic murders in Southport in summer 2024. I can't believe that we're back here again. It's absolutely unacceptable. And the reason it's happening is because Nigel Farage is facing a threat from the right flank of British politics. This is a political game. And it's one that he is playing for reasons of his own personal and professional interest. Yeah. And it has nothing to do with the tragic murder of an eighteen year old kid. Right. Absolutely. And I think you know, you used the phrase political game there and it's a really good phrase and I I have found myself thinking okay so in the game what's the next move what's gonna happen? Maybe there will be more protests that turn into riots, then that will lend more credence to this idea of two-tier policing. I mean, after the last um riots in Southport, I remember looking into this two-tier policing, and you know, it it it does exist, but not exactly where you think it is going to exist, actually, you know, if you're looking at how the police are harder on some groups, it is young black men who they are hardest on. That's what the statistics say. And so and and and someone like Nigel Farage will know that. And it doesn't matter how many communities are harmed in the making of this ascendance to number ten. Like it it doesn't matter at all. Certainly doesn't matter for the Nowak family who are grieving, the most horrifying I didn't watch the video. I couldn't watch the video. I I just I I can't even I I can't e I just cannot even bear to imagine what they're going through. But it will be no justice for them and certainly no justice for the communities, the people of colour who are going to get shouted at on the street, who aggression is going to get taken out towards them. We we know what's coming, we've seen it before. And called it a moment of madness by one individual. Sabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, is a person with whom uh on this podcast I've been very critical of. Um but I would I I I I think what she said was really important that when she was answering questions in the comments about this, that this was not a moment to pit white Britons against non-white Britons. She also pointed out that a police officer has been misidentified as being involved in the case and had to move out of his home after receiving death threats. This is the problem with only taking your information from social media at a time of genuine crisis like this. There is no oversight. There are AI videos being generated that are sort of filling people's feeds at the moment and further inflaming tension. There has to be a full and far-reaching inquiry into what happened to Henry Novak. Absolutely. And there has to be serious questions asked of the police force. But getting your information from social media, threatening to kill police officers threatening to kill anyone in general is obviously never the solution to anything, but threatening to kill somebody that had absolutely no involvement, I I fail to see how that helps anybody, but I would just urge people to like heed Mark Nowak's call. This is a man going through the worst possible thing imaginable. And in that moment he said that he does not want his son's death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension. And I would really urge people to listen to one of the people that is most closely affected by this the person whose world has completely fallen apart. I I would urge you to listen to the words of that person and not the words of people who are going to exploit this for their own personal political gain. So coming up next, we'll be discussing the latest from the Mandelson Files, alongside the alarming news that one million young people are neat, so not in education or employment. It's probably not a surprise that we're returning to the long shadow that's still being cast by the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US. At over 1, 500 pages, this latest release of files is one of the biggest publications to Parliament in history, second only to the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq War. It cost over a million pounds to assemble and it's more than 10 times the size of the first batch of files which were released in March. We've had the Amuse Bouche. Now we've arrived at the main course. It all tastes bad. This is a one out of five health rating restaurant. You are going to get diarrhea. Um yeah, it's bad stuff. So to recap, MPs voted to force the release of the documents about Mandelson's appointment to the UK in what's known as a humble address. In formal terms, it's a petition to the monarch to compel the government to release documents. And while it was historically seen as more of a polite ceremonial message. More recently it's been weaponised, often by opposition parties looking to expose sensitive documents. In this case, it was Kemi Baden ok who originally demanded the documents be published. We've now all got access to hundreds of internal emails between government officials as well as hundreds of WhatsApp messages between Mandelson and government ministers. The only people who were saved from embarrassment were those who'd previously turned on disappearing messages, which is, I guess, a lesson to all of us if you're planning to slag off your boss on the group chat. So here to wade through it with us is Zoe Crowther, political reporter at Politics Home. Welcome to the pod Zoe. Hello, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I'm sorry that we introduced you to a story where I embarked on a long diarrhea-based method. It's fitting, it's fitting. How much more do we learn from this latest tranche of communications? Yeah, I mean, as you set out, more than 1, 500 pages. It costs a lot of money to produce this document. However, we don't actually learn loads of new information specifically about the appointment of Mandelson. I think what it actually does is pretty much lay bare what everyone already knew, which was a lot of the ministers themselves were unhappy with Keir Starmer's leadership. They felt it was ineffective. And other than that, I think just a lot of messages essentially showing that Mandelson was really, really keen to remain relevant. So overall, I'm not sure it will actually shift the dial in any meaningful way in terms of public opinion towards the Labour Party. But frankly, that's because the bar is already set very low and obviously the Labour government isn't performing too well in the polls anyway . Aaron Powell So let's talk about the stuff that's missing, because that's still quite important, right? So uh th they've said that documents that are still being withheld are being withheld at the request of the police in case they prejudice ongoing investigations, right? So that includes emails from Organ McSweeney to Peter Mandelson asking about his relationship with Epstein along with Mandelson's response. How important is what's not being shown here? It's very important in the like I said we, haven't actually learned loads of new information about the appointment itself and the decision making behind that from these particular files. And it should be said as well that Mandelson was requested to hand over some information himself, but he wasn't obliged to and he refused to comply with that. So we're not seeing some of that information. And obviously, like you also mentioned before, we're not seeing a lot of the messages where ministers actually turned on disappearing messages on WhatsApp, including Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, David Lamy . There's there are a lot of people who've kind of got off scot-free, and there is reporting this week that there are some tensions in cabin et between colleagues who had disappearing messages on versus those who didn't. And some of those who didn't kind of turn on the disappearing messages feature feel like they've just been kind of thrown to the wolves, essentially. Mandelson's criticisms of Starmer to McFadden include saying that he isn't leading from the front. He said to Morgan McSweeney that he had no faith in Keir's ability to change number 10. He described the atmosphere as beleaguered and bereft. It requires a complete revamp and infusion of purpose and confidence to get anywhere. Uh and he said Kirlax Verve, as does the government as a whole, there needs to be more dynamism and can do optimism for the government, more pana che. Now, you know, you're a political journalist working very closely in Westminster. Is the picture Mandelson is painting in these messages something that's consistent with your sense of what that you're getting when you're talking to MPs at the moment? Yeah, absolutely. This is something that has been bubbling under the surface probably uh ever since the winter fuel allowance cut in the autumn after the general election. You had it after the 2024 general election where in the first few months a lot of the 2024 intake were very cautious speaking to journalists. They didn't on the on the whole want to criticize the government. But come the autumn of 2024 and then obviously rolling into the welfare reforms last year, that all began to change. And I think over the last probably year, we've just seen a drip, drip effect of Labour MPs almost one by one in conversations with them in Parliament. You just feel that sense of disillusionment. And overall, to be honest, just a lack of direction. And you often hear from civil servants as well as MPs that when you've got different departments trying to push through big reforms and then they'd go to number 10 and ask, what does number 10 actually want from this? What's the overall political vision here? They wouldn't get an answer. So overall, there's just been a lot of MPs have identified just a lack of a vision and leadership in Keir Starmer. And these messages, in a lot of ways, lay that bare. What happened in the first few months of this government? We were doing this show. We were talking about how we felt like there wasn't enough urgency coming out of government. Why was there this inertia for the first sort of three months? Because we're talking about the welfare reforms because that was the first major policy announcement, really, to come out after the summer? I think no one was under any impression during the twenty twenty four election that hundreds of thousands of people across the UK were voting for Labour because they believed that Keir Starmer was this kind of God-sent leader who was going to transform the country overnight. It was because they wanted the conservatives out. And Labour MPs knew that. And obviously, we knew going into the election that a lot of the MPs on the surface seemed relatively pro-starmer. But when you actually dig beneath that, a lot of these MPs have particular issues that they wanted to come into parliament to work on. And I think very, very quickly, they felt like there wasn't anything to attach that sense of purpose and that sense of kind of driving forwards with a labour vision and labor values behind the government. And that actually the government itself hadn't put enough preparation into what a Labour administration would look like nature of the WhatsApp like I I can't really imagine anyone going through my WhatsApp messages. Um if they did it would just be like UK garage mixes and slagging off people that I knew in my twenties, basically is what it would be. But I'm sure in the like de light of death of your personality. We started this conversation talking about the amount of documents that are necessary but omitted due to security concerns or police concerns. So because there's nothing meaty to talk about, we find ourselves dissecting these gossipy WhatsApp messages. Now I wonder, are we looking into this too? Is this all a bit deep? I mean, politics is known for backstabbing me an girls but men. Like this is known about politics and has been for ages. Is this unusual? I don't think it is that unusual. And I do think that overall, when you do the kind of outside of West minster bubble test and you go and speak to your friends and family, like I remember a few months ago speaking to my mum about all of this and asking her, what do you make of all this Mandelson drama? And she rolled her eyes and said, Zoe, I really don't care. I just want to see the government improve my area in Nottingham. I just want to see them get on with stuff. And I think when you speak to people, they are all united by just a sense of complete frustration and exasperation that once again the oxygen is getting taken up by gossipy messages, by back and forth texts between mostly men who seemingly are fairly concerned with their kind of own standing and influence over the politics of the day. And actually Alex Davies Jones, one of the ministers who stood down a few weeks ago and has called for Keir Starmer to go . But later on today and Wednesday, she's due to give a speech where she's actually going to say, what about the victims in all of this? We're forgetting that actually there are really vulnerable women who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein's horrendous crimes and often with all of the media furore about these messages and about this kind of tit for tat drama, we're forgetting some of those bigger questions going forwards. So let's briefly look forward, even though I mean I sort of can't believe it's 2026 and I'm talking about feet of mandels. year olds like me, it's a real throwback period. You know it really does make you think about your own death though, doesn't it? What? Like mortality. What is time? When time repeats itself like this, when you get that feeling of the repetition, is that not a sign of age? And does that not mean we hurt all closer to death? Faster and faster. Honestly, I've only covered one general election and I already feel that. Give me another ten years and we'll see where I get to. Jesus Christ. Do you think you're aging in Prime Minister years? Oh yeah, do you not see the bags under my eyes right now? Exhausted, we all are. Coming up after the break, uh the kids are really not all right. We'll be talking about youth unemployment in light of the Milburn report. PodSave the UK is brought to you by Shopify. Starting something new can be genuinely intimidating. 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Vanta is the number one agentic trust platform used by over sixteen thousand fast moving companies like Synesthesia, Nando's and Granola to help ensure they're always audit ready. And now Vanta is helping companies watch for the risks that show up between audits across vendors, AI tools, and just their whole environment. The Vanta agent works like a 24-7 GRC engineer in the background, finding issues, drafting fixes, and cutting vendor assessment time by up to 50%. So whether you're a fast-growing startup or a global enterprise, Vanta is here to help you automate your security and compliance and to earn and prove trust. Get started today at vanta.com forward slash P S T UK. That's vanta V an ta dot com slash PST So a major new review led by former Labour Cabinet Minister Alan Milburn has warned that more than one million I can't believe I'm saying that is such a big number. One million sixteen to twenty four year olds in the UK are now not earning or learning. That is roughly one in eight young people. So today we're going to unpack a little about youth unemployment or to use the official term NEETS, young people who are not in education, employment or training? The conclusions are pretty blunt. It's not because young people don't want to work. It's not because they're uniquely fragile, lazy or addicted to their smartphones. The review says the vast majority of young people who are out of work want a job or education or training. The problem is that the majority of the interlocking systems meant to help them get there have effectively collapsed. So the question is why has Britain built an economy that no longer seems willing or So the scale of this is pretty staggering. So the the figure that you've already said, Coco, million young people aged 16 to 24, not in education, employment, or training, of that million, 400,000 are unemployed, meaning that they're looking for work, but more than six hundred thousand are economically inactive, which means that they're not currently looking for work or able to start. And that distinction does really matter because not working can mean a lot of different things. It can mean you're applying for 50 jobs and hearing nothing back. It can mean that you're ill. It can mean that you're caring for someone. It can mean you've dropped out of the system entirely. So Zoe, I feel like this is a huge story. And sometimes I get so frustrated with our political coverage because it's so focused on political infighting. Whereas I think this story tells us just the severity of the crisis that we face. So I guess my first question to you is: do other people in politics share my fear? You're close to MPs, you talk to them. Is everyone as as scared as I am? Yes. Um, definitely. Yeah, I think um there is huge concern coming out of this report, but it was also something that MPs were speaking to me about months ago, and of course a lot of the twenty twenty four intake in particular are quite young themselves. And we now have uh a parliament where actually a significant enough number of MPs themselves have been on the plan two of the student loans, for example, so are able to personally speak to the impact of of that on their own finances and their own ability to get on the on the housing ladder, for example. And also MPs who are much more attuned to talking about mental health and those kind of issues that are facing young people. So yeah, I think what this report does is really kind of lay bare exactly what the issues are and where they come from. I believe it's an interim report, so they're kind of setting out the sol utions is still to come. And I think some people are concerned that we have these consultations and reports. We often do this with big structural issues where we're very good at identifying the problems and not always the best at actually settling on what the solution should be. But I think ultimately what it does is show that there is a really fundamental demand side problem that the government has kept well, previous governments as well have kept trying to solve with supply side solutions. So kind of focusing on the the kind of education side but more of an emphasis on getting young people the qualifications that they need, but maybe not enough emphasis on okay, what destinations is that actually going to lead to and where are those jobs actually going to come from? And what we're seeing is a huge squeeze on the entry level roles. It's really important to highlight that a big part of the review challenges the moral panic around young people being work-shy. So it it's really important that as quickly as possible we sort of dismiss this idea that young people don't want to work or they're lazy or anything. Because that that is how I imagine this report is going to be characterized in sections of our national conversation. There is a geographical problem as well. I mean, across the country, the centre for cities has pointed out the young people most at risk of becoming NEETSA disproportionately in weaker urban economies outside the greater southeast. So there is this there is there are regional disparities, there are regional inequaliti es. And but the problem with this always, it's not there's not one problem that we're looking at here that's the cause of all of this. This is a thing that cuts across the entire political conversation because it's about employment . It's also about housing. Because if housing is sort of astronomically expensive, it sort of has knock-on effects across the whole economy and it keeps people living at home. There's also an issue with education as well, you know, w uh the accessibility of higher education. Uh how does Labour even begin to start dealing with this? I mean, I know that we're not at solutions phase yet, but I'm hoping as a Westminster journalist and the closest thing to a young person we've got on this podcast right now. Just about, just about. Certainly a lot closer than the two presenters with. Speak yourself, mate. Speak for yourself. I you can't declare yourself as being spiritually 25, Coca . That doesn't make sense. Um well, okay. Speaking of somebody who's much closer to the young person than me, who's 40 but feels like they might be 63. What where how do you start tackling a problem like this? Or what what are the levers people are suggesting that the government starts pulling? Well, depends on who you ask. There are going to be arguments around the the welfare system because I think is that state expenditure on benefits such as universal credit for young people currently sits at about eight billion pounds. Has obviously been increasing over the years. And despite, I think a lot of people have point to the fact that despite the amount of spent on benefits increasing, employment outcomes for young people on benefits have declined. So what's going to be really difficult for labor and what MPs are starting, well, not starting to, they have been debating amongst themselves for quite a while, is how do they tackle that ballooning welfare bill and think about fundamental reform while also not cutting off those resources for young people. And then obviously we've also got other welfare, like parts of the welfare system like uh the triple lock on pensions that I'm sure a lot of MPs who are concerned about young people in particular will want to be starting to put more pressure on perhaps. But it's obviously an issue that a lot of politicians do not want to touch with a barge pole when particularly older people are much more likely to turn out and vote in elections, of course. So there's all of these questions, but there's obviously as well just the question about the education system. The fact that in and of itself it's often underfunded, it's lacking the kind of overarching framework to get young people from starting out even from early years and then going into school, being equipped with not only the qualifications but the skills and then the jobs and training to come out of it. And there was some really interesting research by the Center for Social Research. NATSAN has put out a report highlighting at like a social attitude survey, essentially, highlighting attitudes towards higher education and universities and whether that pathway actually helps young people get into work. And overall, it basically shows increasing uncertainty around that and that a lot of young people, but also people of other ages are starting to feel like it isn't worth it, or that the student loan system is disincentivising people from going to university . So there's that whole question as well. And like you say, it's it's not one thing. It's so overarching. And then there's obviously the AI question as well, although that's more forward facing because we don't truly know uh what the impacts of that will will be yet. Yeah the report does engage with AI and says that it's a problem that's looming rather than something that's already actually which makes sense if you think about the sort of prevalence of large language models. It's really the last two years we're talking about that they've become that widely accessible. Yeah. So this is clearly not something this is a problem that's sort of twenty five years in the making, really. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it only highlights the urgency of getting on top of all of the other problems if there's yet another potential shock down the track. And it's not only AI actually impacting the job market itself, it's what impact is that going to have on young people's development, on their ability to actually kind of like critically think and get through higher education in a way that's actually going to develop them towards jobs that are going to be valuable. Um so yeah, there's all these studies. I I've read a couple of pieces from the States about the imp that we're already seeing that whilst it's recent technology, so for the purposes of this conversation, it's a looming threat rather than something that's actually caused problems. There is all this worrying stuff about it's actually starting to show up in slowing IQ points. In your brain, yeah. Yeah, it's actually starting to start. The impact of it in the job market, something that's going to happen, but the impact of it on our actual cognitive development is already starting to happen. Yeah. And that is that's terrifying. I and I can totally see how that happens. So I do quite a lot of reporting on where AI and technology meets politics. And obviously, reporting on AI, I've used AI a lot to kind of try and understand how it works, like what are people using it for, where are the pitfalls. And you do actually find over time, if you're using it for research or if you're having a bit of a brain dump of ideas, you want feedback on it, whatever it might be, you can feel yourself starting to make shortcuts where whenever there's a challenge, you just reach for the generative AI and you almost forget how to just sit with your own thoughts and come up with the solutions. So I suppose the question is: what is Labour going to do about all of this? So firstly, they've appointed Mark Boland, he's the former MS and Morrison's chief exec . He'll be uh leading a task force to understand how to tackle youth unemployment. It does sound a bit random, but his background is with movement to work, which is a charity, which says it's helped more than 200,000 young people into work . Can you see any kind of policy announcements coming down the line about this? So in spite of the real need for caution here and the real need for policy announcements, is the problem here just that the Labour government is essentially frozen in carbonite until the aftermath of the maker field election? And given the scale of the crisis, we we really can't afford that, right? Yeah, I mean it's pretty much the consensus, even among those who are supporting Starmer right now, that he is a dead man walking and it's a matter of time before he goes. So it does feel like Westminster is a little bit frozen at the moment. If anything, I mean I think there's particularly a lot of talk about will this force some kind of change to the welfare system? And that is something that is obviously going to be very, very difficult for Labour to do off the back of a rebellion from MP s last year. Um but you know, if if we're to see anything, I would wager that they'd they'd want to do something on that. Maybe not this year, maybe next year, but what that will be and and how difficult that will be is is another question. But I think right now we're waiting for the maker field by-election, you know, waiting to see essentially what policy platform someone like Andy Burnham might come into and how far is he willing to take things? If he wins the by-election, launches a leadership challenge, becomes leader and prime minister, does he have a set idea for how he wants to tackle a lot of these issues? A lot of this is unknown so far. But the it if we respond with welfare cuts, it's not reacting to what the report is saying, right? Because the report is saying that the issue is that the pathways to employment are are being severed. It doesn't blame a kind of indulgent culture fed by If you're cutting welfare, you're actually cutting financial benefits off people for n for no reason other than trying to balance the books. But it doesn't actually address the root causes of the crisis that are being laid out in this report. I mean there have been some new government announcements in the last week kind of off the back of report. Obviously they knew the report was coming, so they wanted to get some things out. You know, for example, they've announced an employment lifeline for young people, offering 300,000 new work experience and training placements, part of a kind of £2.5 billion youth employment support package, uh, the government says it will see young people gain hands on experience, build real skills. I suppose the question coming out of that will be will those placements then convert into meaningful employment going forwards? How quickly will these things take place? So obviously, it remains to be seen whether that's just a kind of short-term stop gap policy or whether it can really tackle those underlying structural issues. But I'm sure I'm sure we will see more announcements. But when I'm not exactly sure, I mean I well, some of the comments, the conversation have been pretty random. I I I absolutely have to mention Louise Sander Jones, defence minister, who has uh encouraged young people weighing up their options to consider the armed forces. So, you know, considering the long history of the military being presented as a respectable route out of poverty, uh, while other civilian routes are underfunded, it makes sense, but it does also sound like, hey young people, we can't offer you a good life. Have you considered death? Have you considered that? You know what I mean? And like also, Nish, I just I should just mention to you that this the UK's not the only person having this conversation about should we get more young people into the armed forces. In Germany, men under 45 have been told to stay home, just in case they're required. So you ain't aged out of this, bro. I'm sorry to say that if we're starting the threshold at forty five, we're gonna lose the war. Like there's absolutely no way I saw you in an escape room show, you know how to do things. Yeah, you saw me on an escape room show slide down a lubed roof with David O'Donathan. Yeah, that's it. The way out, available to screen now. If I'm called up for any military service, the war is over. I don't know. It sounds like excuses to be, but it's not excuses, Zoe. It's a plea for common sense. A stand-up comedian and two journalists are not winning this war, guys. Zoe Crowther, thank you for joining us on PodSave the UK. Thank you so much for having me. So before we head into our next segment, we wanted to do a plug for one of our favorite shows at Crooked. If you want to absorb American politics without losing your mind, check out Crooked's comedy talk show, love it or leave it. Each episode, former Obama speechwriter and self-described comedian John Lovett. He's really funny. I don't know if he's put himself down there. That's not Coco slamming Lovett. John Lovett is joined on stage by comics, journalists, politicians, and cultural guests to break down the biggest stories in Amer ican politics with jokes, analysis, catharsis, but mainly jokes. Upcoming guests include comedian and literal clown school graduate Zach Zucker, SNL alum Jay Farrow, and Never Have I Ever's Pune Jagannathan, and more, and previous guests include me, to be absolutely fair. So watch, love it, or leave it on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts. PodSave the UK is brought to you by Aura Frames. 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That's Auraframes, A-U-R-A-Frames.co.uk, and the promo code is PSUK . Support the show by mentioning us at dot com. Terms and conditions apply. Podsave the UK is brought to you by BT. We talk a lot on this show about the big things shaping Britain, the economy, public services, business, technology, but so much of what keeps the country moving is the infrastructure we barely even notice. Exactly. The systems quietly working in the background, keeping homes connected, businesses running and services operating. They only really get attention when they stop working, which is why companies like BT matter. For a hundred and eighty years, BT has built a legacy of engineering excellence, helping power the connections that modern Britain depends on. BT's network is in many ways the silent engine of the UK, building and maintaining the resilient infrastructure that keeps communities connected and the country moving forward. And security is a big part of that. BT helps protect homes and businesses by shielding the UK from around four million cyber threats every day, providing a vital layer of defense that most of us never even see. It's that combination of reliability, resilience, and specialist expertise that's made BT the most trusted network, supporting more homes and businesses than any other BT behind brilliant things. Search why to find out more in the space of a few years, the UK has moved from a broadly inclusive country for trans people to live in to one of the most hostile developed democracies in Europe. And just two weeks ago, the realities of life for trans people got made What this will mean is that single sex toilets and changing rooms should exclude trans people and the organizations affected are expected to provide, and we quote, alternative facilities for trans people instead. This has left many In addition to this, uh last month Britain recorded its lowest ever position on Europe's annual rainbow map, which ranks countries according to their laws and protections for LGBTQ plus people. So how did we get here? Part of the answer may lie in, surprise, surprise, the media. So new research from Amnesty International UK maps the rise of so-called gender critical organiz ations campaigning against trans rights. It argues that a small network of groups has had a disproportionate influence on public debate and of course on politics. Here to discuss all of this with us is Sabah Chowdhury, an award-winning writer, speaker, an LGBTQ plus activist who co-founded the first UK Trans Pride event in Brighton. Sabah, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Also just full disclosure, Sabah is our mate. So hope that's I feel like that should be said. I love that. Absolutely. Just in case it like comes up. But to I just want it to be cle like just get it out. Uh everyone this is the first time I've ever made it in my life. Anyway, anyway. It's really funny to just be like cards on the table, we're mates, and for you just to go, no, we're not uh anyway . Friends thank you for having me. It's lovely to see you again. We're real life friends. Listen, I actually think it would be beneficial to all of us if more media organizations started by somebody saying Exactly We all, you know, were in whatever Bullingdon Club. They paid me five million pounds to say this and that. Yeah. And just to reiterate, none of us was in the Bullingdon Club. I do not have five million pounds. So uh okay, there's a lot to unpack here, so let's just start with this recent guidance. What were people, and I'm thinking particularly in the LGBTQ community, you know, what were people hoping would come out of this updated guidance? And now that it's out, what does it actually mean for trans people in their day-to-day lives? So we were hoping for two things. Uh one is a concise answer, an explanation of what the Equality Act now means. Um and the other is a clear understanding of how to then put this into practice, which for a three hundred page document, surprisingly, it did not do do that. Whates it mean for every day? It's I I think the the the I'm struggling with how to answer is because it doesn't, it's not easy to understand. Yeah. Um, and I think that's kind of part of the problem is actually what it means is a few different things. I think the first iteration was quite um, what's the word, severe? Like it was going to ask for trans people to show their birth certificate to use single sec facilities to use a toilet. Thankfully, that was taken out. Um , but we still have this real confusion around what providers, services, businesses are meant businesses are meant to provide. So the guidance, first of all, it is just guidance , it's not law, it's not statutory yet, which you know I can come on to later. Um but what it's saying is that you can provide a trans inclusive space. Um if you're providing single-sex spaces, so men's toilets, women's toilets, then you need to provide a third toilet for for trans people, which which is part part of the problem is that this is pushing trans people into this kind of third other gender ? Um , but so I should say it's given a kind of a map for organiz ations to use the law in a way to further exclude trans people? The scary thing is is that it's influencing how we as a society treat trans people, police trans people, um despite the law actually saying like,, okay, well you, you know, the Equality Act still protects trans people, gender reassignment is still one of the categories. Um, what's happening societally, culturally is far more dangerous. And that's been happening over the last year. Yeah. So trans women aren't allowed to use women's toilets. And they may be excluded from single sex spaces of this this assigned sex at birth. So a trans man can be barred from a women's toilet or changing room. And then there's also this third thing. I I think one of the things that I find really frustrating is a lot of politicians in the last few months have said things like the guidance is clear, the Supreme There's this r r repeating of the phrase the guidance is clear, but it's not clear. It's not clear at all. And so it it can be enforced on a case case by basis and it's enforced based on challenges based on an individual's uh and this is a quote from the report physique or physical appearance. Yeah. That's not clear. No. That's the opposite of clear. I'm sort of s I feel like we're we're sort of being collectively gas-lit when we're being told that what we've been brought is clarity. But actually, that has consequences and causes confusion for trans people and some cis people as well. That it's a this th idea that you this is sort of you know like this a sort of visual test you have to now pass, what it's clearly demonstrating is something quite chilling, right? Yeah. It's turned the entire conversation around safety into one of policing. And how do you police people's gender, people's appearances, based on your own perceptions, your own ideas of what a man or a woman should look like? You you can't put that into a box. Or you know, we're seeing that you you y people are trying to and we're just seeing it affects everyone, not just trans people, cis women, cis men, everyone's everyone's being policed. No one is um no one is safe from gender policing. Um, of course, this is gonna um have a bigger impact on trans women, but the other thing is you know, gender policing doesn't exist in in asylum. It's not just going to be about gender, it's going to be about race, you know, it's gonna be it's gonna be people of colour, in particular black people who were targeted more for their perceived gender expressions and femininities and masculinities. You know, we only have to look to like the Olympics and the sports to see how that happens and and you know, gender policing, racialized gender policing in action. We're gonna see more of that when yeah, it should this should be about safety if it's about safety, but I fear it's just yeah, anti-trans hatred just kind of hidden behind, you know, this Some strange awkward confrontation about my gender presentation. And it's it's a chilling effect, isn't it? And it essentially it will drive trans people out of public spaces. How are you seeing that already? Are you seeing that people are just oh I'm just not gonna go out or I'm just not gonna be included, I'm not gonna share my voice in public debates or whatever it might be. Is that happening? Yeah it is you know and already trans people my friends we're not we're making decisions about when we go out, where we're going out to. We're thinking about, you know, where's the safest toilet? Which I remember I thought about when I first started when I first started transitioning when I came out. And I'm like thinking like, why am I s why am I going back into this mentality of like, where am I safe? And it's it's so sad because I don't feel like that's the direction our society was going into. And now here we are, yeah, retreating again, hiding. Yeah, I mean it the government's own equality impact assessment acknowledges that the impact on trans people were likely to be wide-ranging and negative, and notes that trans women could face a disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault if left only with access to men's services. And that suggests there could be that that's real life consequence. So the by its own acknowledgement , the government is suggesting that this change is going to have a negative impact on people's lives. Yeah. And there's nothing So what are we doing here? Yeah. Do you know? Like that's that's what I feel when I read this. What the fuck are we doing? Yeah. It doesn't give any uh uh you know, provisions to okay, let's set up let's set up a transdomestic violence refuge, let's do something like that. But it it's putting all the onus onto businesses, onto services, onto charities, to say, well, you do what you want, depending on how you feel about trans people about this. For so for institutions like Women's Institute, you can say something like, We're for biological girls and trans girls to include trans women. So there is a way to then be trans inclusive. But the scariest part is we're having to leave it to these independent organiz individual organizations. Sorry. There's a real organized movement happening at play to make sure that trans people don't have a space and are erased from public life. And and I think as well, you know, as you as you put there, it's not saying that organizations can't be trans inclusive, but they have to be very pro active in doing it, which we hope many will. But there's also just this the grim reality of money, right? So in a very literal sense, the cost of reconfiguring facilities, you know, people are saying half a billion pounds. How are businesses going to afford this? So it's all well and good the business the the government saying, okay, all right, well look, if you decide to be trans inclusive, we're not gonna stop you, but we know that you'll be doing that in a uh landscape, in a context where we're making it near to impossible. Um yeah, I I mean it's it's it's it's just begs belief really. So let's talk about the uh rainbow index. Um it basically charts uh how friendly a nation is to the LGBTQ community and Britain's had a big old slide. Um do you think that's accurate that the UK is considerably more hostile to compared to our European counterparts? Sadly , I think so. Um and this I I love this map. I I used to use it when I was planning on where to go on holiday in Europe, like figuring out okay, where am I gonna be safe? Um so seeing this change for the UK is really it's really stark because it's like, well this this is my home, like this is where I live and if I was gonna choose them to go on holiday, I wouldn't come here. Like you know it's um it's really sad, but it it's it matches up with what's happening. Um I think I hope it's a real it it wakes people up to see like this is where we're going. Is this really where our country is heading? Like, does it is this what we want? Is this the perception we want to have? So the latest rankings, which were published on Wednesday, the 14th of May, show the UK has dropped to 22nd with an overall score of 46%, making it now the second worst country for LGBTQ plus laws in Western Europe and Scandinavia. And we're above uh only Italy. Um in 2015, the UK was named the best place in Europe for LGBTQ plus rights with an 86% rating. And this the Supreme Court ruling is explicitly the factor in the kind of collapse of that. It it sort of should be a source of some national shame for us really. So actually yeah while while we're talking about this I think I I have to mention the Amnesty International uh UK's report because I I I found it, aside from the fact that I found it just brilliant journalism. Um, I think it, like you say, Nish, it should be a source of national shame. What it does is it lays out how mainstream media organiz ations have essentially passed what used to be quite fringe anti-trans opinions and passed them into the mainstream. There's loads of different mechanisms that they identify in doing it. But I I have always felt, and this is I hope this doesn't sound terrible, but back in 2014, 201 2, truth be told, I didn't think much about trans rights. And that is probably my own ignorance because I should know more about these things if I'm someone who claims to be a progressive. But I suspect my feeling was not vastly dissimilar to lots of people in the UK, which was like, don't know, none of my business, move on. Now it has fixated in the mind. Now it has gripped people in kind of fervor, which obviously isn't it is not Just as like my mate, does that track with you that like, you know, when you first started transitioning, you had to explain to people what it was, and now it's just instant hostility. Yeah, I guess that's true. I'm I'm hesitating because it's hard to detach my trans experience from being uh South Asian or being a Muslim and actually there's it's a combined hostility, you know. Or like may maybe because I haven't had the experience of not being these things, I can't quite separate it. But I think that I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think these things are related, like this rise in anti- trans, anti-migrant, anti-Muslim racist um ideas and beliefs that have kind of started around the same time. You know, you mentioned 2015, the Gender Recognition Act uh was passed in 2017. And I think that the rise from then is is really notable. Um you know that the reason there's research um by a friend of mine, Chloe Turner, who's um doing their PhD on transit misinformation at Goldsmiths, who showed from 2015 to 2020 to 2010 to 2015, there was a 414% increase in monthly trans stories about trans people, which is huge. Yeah. Um so this this has been happening for a while and there's a huge parallel as well with ultra Christian ideologies as well, where this th you know, the idea of like natur al identities, traditional roles um, you know, is really at the forefront. Between January 2020 and April 2025, the four outlets that this amnesty report looked at published 16, 9 13 articles about trans people. So that's an average of 264 articles per month or nine articles per day. If you think about the is sues that are facing this country and that faced the country specifically in the period of January 2020 to April, what what in the name of God is going on? In 2020, there was like quite a significant thing that was going on that really should have been focusing. No, sorry guys, it was all about us. Look that's and you know the problem is that it's easy to sort of look at that and just think, well, these people have s clearly just taken leave of their senses but it has a genuine impact uh in terms of the the public interest and it has moved the dog, but it's still not moved it that far. The coverage is still disproportionate. In in 2024, in the uh the general election, issues related to trans rights or sex and gender didn't feature in the top 16 concerns of voters. And when you think about what this government has not been willing to move on that factors into most people's thinking on a day-to-day basis, you know, primarily things like the cost of living, healthcare, education, and employment opportunities for young people. It's astonishing the speed at which the government has moved or been willing to move their position on this specific issue. I'm saying something that we all really know instinctively, right? That these this issue is the result of a concerted campaign. This is the slow drip feed of intolerance into our public discourse that is now having policy ramifications or potentially on the verge of having policy ramific Yeah, yeah. Like, do you know what percentage of trans people are of the UK population? It's tiny, isn't it? Zero point five percent. Aroundabout. Like, it doesn't make sense. It's so disproportionate. And I I don't think I would mind if the things that were being written about trans people were were were positive, were were joyful, were accurate, were factual, but they're not. Like Yeah, I didn't want to, I didn't I didn't think I needed to bring it up, but I do think it's worth mentioning Amnesty doesn't use any of those words to describe the articles that we're putting in. Positive, joyful and accurate are not words they were using to describe the characterisation of those articles. Yeah, and it was very much a culture of talking about trans people, but very rarely actually handing them the mic to talk about their own experiences. Sort of how keenly are you following the kind of movements of the gender critical movement? Because I mean the the amnesty report also kind of goes into this into the kind of details around it and sort of traces, you know, this the origins of it to d 2017, eighteen, which you've already mentioned, this sort of public consultations um on amending the gender recognition act from 2004. That reform has actually now been shelved. The the thing that still blows my mind about this is 61% of the respondents to the English consultation agreed with the removal of the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. There is still a sense, even with the worsening environment and the uh hostility, there is still a sense that this is a policy that is sort of actually out of step with a lot of what the British public thinks, right? Yeah. And there's research from the British Social Attitude Survey in 2023 that found that attitudes towards trans people has become less liberal in recent years, but a majority of UK public, 64%, like you say, describe themselves as not prejudiced at all against people who are transgender. Like generally, people are quite indifferent to us. Minority communities broadly will take indifference. We will take tolerance. Yeah. Because actually, like it is, you know, the one thing that sort of unites a lot of the convers ations you sort of have around any kind of scaremongering around around a minority group, whether we're talking about the trans community, whether we're talking about the sort of you know especially in this week of all weeks the South Asian community you know we we're your neighbours we're your friends we're your community you know us you know we're not scary. I I'm I'm I'm I'm always surprised and saddened and amazed when I see people use one example as a reason to demonize another community. Yeah. I remember when I was um it's maybe about ye ars10 ago, I would I was working with uh groups called Trans Media Watch and All About Trans, and they would invite just like everyday trans people. I think I did their training. Yeah. I think so, yeah. They did amazing work. They would invite everyday trans people like me to to go and talk with w talk with them when they were about to publish um produce or or um yeah publish a documentary on trans trans lives. Where so they actually had us in there talking with them they heard our experiences heard how we would feel about this the kind of the variety and diversity of trans experiences and that just has stopped I mean trans people aren't there you know we're not in the room we're not we're not um there's been a huge turnover of journalists. I know Freddie McConnell and Ludwig Parsons, you know, big trans journalists have have lost positions and now we're seeing what happens with when you write things without us. Across the entire coverage that Amnesty studied, only two British trans people appeared. And one of them was Brianna Jay, who was a 16-year-old trans girl who' mursdered in a public park by two teen agers. It's a horrible case. The other was Isla Bryson, a trans woman who before transitioning was convicted of sexual violence offences in 2023. And he was initially placed in a women's prison, segregated from other inmates, but then following a public outcry, Bryson was then transferred to a men's prison. So those are the only two names that are mentioned across all of the coverage that Amnesty studied. You know, this this sort of y sixteen thousand nine hundred and thirteen articles. I mean that that's that kind of tells us that's that's a pretty alarming story in of itself. Yeah. And to those journalists I wan I I I want to ask them like well what do you think that's going to Like what do you what do you what kind of impression do you think that's going to give of trans people to the public? You know, we're talking we're talking we're talking about someone who was murdered and someone who was um a rapist. And to the trans people, how do you think that's gonna make us feel when we're reading these stories? You know, when and you know, thinking, is this what you think of us? Is this is this all we're capable of? It's it's horrible. Yeah, this is what this is what I always come back to this thing of minority groups always have to be in solidarity with each other. And that minority groups and women always have to be in solidarity with each other. the the the forces behind these kind of movements, the kind of Christian nationalists, religious fundamentalists of all kinds, um the ADF in Germany, the those are kind of those are organizations that Amnesty has been sort of referencing in some of the reports. Do you really think that they will be they will stop at one minority? That that has never ever happened. If they come for one of us, they're coming for all of us. What we're seeing is equality itself being eroded. In the Equality Act, you know, this is we're seeing trans people as a lesser category within the Equality Act. So it's not it's not equal, it's not functional, it's not working, but it's happening. And exactly right. Who's who's going to be next? So I wanted to ask you what you thought about Reform UK. They've won control of Durham County Council. One of their first moves was to axe the fund ing for the city's Pride event because clearly there was nothing else to do. That was pressing. Not even potholes, which I thought was their big thing. Uh it hasn't seemed to stop the Durham LGBTQ community. This year's Pride March was bigger than ever. I g I guess you know the the notion of a Pride Month and a Pride March, do you still believe in it as a as a vehicle for good? And what do you think we could be doing to ensure that these go ahead and we continue to show solidarity for this. Yeah. I I mean I yeah, I was the founder of Trans Pride Pride in twenty twelve actually, um, and I'm currently director of Middlesex Pride, which is my uh local pride. Um it's uh Sunday, 2nd of August at Temperature Park. Um and well the first thing about this story, it was it I'm smiling as you say it because I I keep hearing that from people from funders and other people that pride is not a political issue. Start bringing the politics into pride. And I'm seeing what's happened with Durham Pride and Reform. And it's like, well, you you're the ones who the ones who are bringing politics into pride. You've made this a polit ical issue. Um, you know, pride is not neutral, but it's not because of us. It's because of groups like Reform. Um so I what I would love to see is that for for pride and organizations to not have the pressure to be party neutral and actually pick and choose the people we want involved because those are the people who help us succeed. I just want to just following on exactly from what you said, I I went to univers ity in Durham and it's obviously a place that's very close to my heart. And I went to the the minor scholar every year is an incredible event. And the reason that the Pride March was able to happen in Durham is because the trade union stepped in. The union stepped in and funded the march and raised more money than the original budget was supposed to be. And that the relationship between those unions, particularly the mining unions, and pride as an event goes back to the miner strikes. And Stephen Guy, who's the chair of the Durham Miners Association, said that when it became apparent that pride was under threat , he took it upon himself to encourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT plus community. Because he said the community showed their heroism during the minor strikes. He said this. They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity. That is exactly, that's exactly what you're talking about, right? That's exactly, that's exactly the kind of intersectional solidarity that is the it has to be the kind of driving motivation for all of us. Trans Pride Brighton, you know, it happened because we had other people involved, because we used allies, because we leaned on on the council, we leaned on um people in other movements and other community groups and other street festivals to make it all happen. And I will always remember and always talk about the fact that it it wasn't just trans people who wanted trans bright bright and to happen. Cis people wanted it to happen. And when it happened for that first time, it was amazing. It was beautiful. Everyone saw not just, oh, this is who trans people are. This is who who loves trans people. This is who supports trans people and it's everyone. And that's why I think intersectionality is so important in these conversations and we need to really stay t stay tuned to that. This system at play is not a new system. Um you know, what we're seeing is the really tried and tested machine of white supremacy. You know, the way that this government has treated trans people is not dissimilar to how it's treated gay people, um, to black people, to people of colour. So we we need to need to start connecting these dots, invite work, work with the trade unions, work with different community groups to make make pride happen and keep these spaces alive and existing. You know, middle sex pride, we I I love this pride because we re reflect and represent so many people across Hounslow, Ealing, Hillingdon. And the space really reflects that and it feels welcoming and people don't feel like they don't belong