wreck or child poverty a member of the government social mobility commission reveals the ukase plus feeling plus in the headlines the indian as strikes bordering on war and the venezuelan music promotion which could be a billion as self promotion all this more coming up in today's going underground but first the british government may have long forgotten its ambition to overthrow the government of syria today london is walking to sort of bricks and support each defacto coup attempts in venezuela but according to the latest murdoch sunday times british ground troops have been sent to syria despite elected m.p.'s voting against but aside from the russians turks and iranians one force has been key in battling isis dietician al qaeda lebanese party has bulla even time warner c.n.n. used to accept this yes it's just a man on a hill but that even let us film it was pretty remarkable hezbollah are the most secretive of militants but the u.s. government still lists as a terrorist organization taking journalists on a victory lap they say they've routed hundreds of al qaeda linked syrian militants

the nusra front yes us mainstream media covering as well as victory against the al qaeda linked al nusra front which the u.k. state mandated b.b.c. expose is linked to british funding yet what happened this week to reward has been a de facto fighting with britain against terrorism now russian government is moving to ban all when's of the lebanese group has being what it describes a terrorist organization to the news surprise qatar funded al-jazeera qatar after all sponsors meetings with hezbollah as a strategic partner for stability in the middle east many in the region wonder how juries make a designate democratically elected lebanese members of parliament as terrorists this after has been or did well that elections have on the political and large made significant gains. for just over half of all the parliamentary seats according to some u.k. politicians as well there is anti semitic but it's a valid aim is to create a one state policy. israel solution that embraces jews christians and muslims at

least that's according to has been a leader when interviewed by wiki leaks is julian a son john the u.k. object tension in london as determined by the un the only solution is the establishment of one of the one state on the land of palestine and was commanded muslims and jews and the christians living in the east in a democratic state senator skeptical even asked whether hezbollah the name meaning party of god except those who did not believe in one god as a freedom fighter also you seek to liberate people from the totalitarian concept of on earth. god. but that has willingly did more than smile you did five to impose and religious belief on anyone. abraham the prophet abraham why one monk was always in favor of he was anyhow dialogue mentioning africans and we're all we're all following that well the

e.u. does not agree with ray's amazed decision to call democratically elected politicians terrorists nor does it appear to agree with her on an irish border meanwhile the u.k. media seem to have suddenly discovered policies agreed by britain's labor party on brics it so what does it all mean for the corbett project joining me now is the man who won the largest individual mandate in europe former mayor of london ken livingstone again thanks for coming back on before we get to these weighty issues the president mayor of london issued a warning about not jogging and walking fast in london the british capital because of the degree of air pollution this week because of the warm weather which catastrophic i've worked in central london fifty years all my life my lungs for a couldn't someone five years older and so we've got to tackle this problem we've got to get rid of d. so we've got a massively improve our equality act let's get on to this business about the mainstream media suddenly discovering a compazine from last year's labor. influence why do you think there's been such

a hollow ballou about repeating the call design that there could be a second referendum if different stages of this process were read it was there in the tea party labor's preference is they want a general election if they don't get rid of trees that might be if we can get a general election it was absolutely clear at conference we want to second people's vote. so i don't see why one for me so surprised it's been covered as a great betrayal and particularly saying that how can a second vote be all knowing the referendum which labor prevails if you look back at the referendum what both sides were saying to remain as and believe as it's all turned out not to be true i.e. what we've now got is much more detailed analysis of what's going happen and the defining issue has been diffused at the business community overwhelmingly every business thinks there will be major problems if we leave in that as that's come across in the media i think that's why there's been

a shift now and you can't unite people and not a vote if they change their mind i like we've never been alexa here on the left of the sort of tony benn's side of brick sets you know just when they were actually in the first referendum back in one nine hundred seventy five i voted to leave you were because of them was about two to one in favor of remaining and so when people say should we have a second referendum this will be the third one ok but i mean it is the derivatives market has already been so ill the city of london visa v. europe even in a no deals iteration they seem to always get all the deals but it is quicker than medicine and food supply it's easier for the financial sector to work its way around the damage that will be done much more difficult for manufacturing and so on if you've been part of the biggest trading block in the world for forty five years your economy is that it's the back and to suddenly will be a city of london and does it so so easily acutely what they that they spent. all

their lives doing money laundering and tax dodging they know their way to get round things just on the electoral issue the london school of economics. shows that based on corbin's a very successful twenty sixteen electoral success a majority of gains needed to put jeremy corbyn in number ten downing street leave voting constituencies surely the feeling of betrayal perceived bridge rail is a word means that that means corby's lost the election and in the run up to the two thousand and seventeen election jeremy's poll ratings were abysmal but the moment the election started and we were discussing bringing the trains back into public ownership the energy companies and so on actually massively expanding and manufacturing base all of that once you get to the general election all of our radio and television media a couple by the door has to be equal coverage and it will be i know i don't think it will dominate that people's mind concern is who can create a better britain in which i my kids will get a good job

a ballot. it's interesting you say that they're just lation make such an impact on voting perceptual because in the media every in this week in the past twenty four hours the murdoch times poll is claiming eighteen percent will vote for this independent grouping which isn't even a political party in parliament the blairite sort of labor when the nation we had a spate like this back in ninety one when i read that about twenty five diagram create b.s.t. paid within a year bad a poll rating a fifty percent a year like a virtual written off their seats and once you hit and that should people be saying well how can you have labor people in a new party with these tories who destroyed so much of our way of life i was quite pleased to see those he's leaving the party because i never thought of them as labor i'd be quiet to see a few more got as well say that the the dories would deny that. the cuts were

bad in fact they were proud of the cuts that were made and after all it was a majority that abstained famously when harriet harman was acting. leader of the parliamentary party and welfare cuts and austerity was all and that was what triggered the surge of support for jeremy because jeremy came out he voted against whereas mostly i'm actually just went along with wanted so i've always thought that harriet harman decision to do more to elect jeremy as leader. than anything else because he was seen as standing up for a decent welfare state if you listen view or. any other consumption of british media those are not the issue is the issue is as being the anti semitism in the labor but he was surprised that the tory hope not hate reporters will be even more widely distributed as a mayoral montez next year sure maybe the tory candidate it seems has insulted

single mothers working class voters black families hindus young women have been reported and was slim's why is it only. feelings make a good candidate tory party rank and file voted for him i think because he's deeply reactionary but this isn't new if you go back to the last narrow election i made the tory campaign against city calm was i mean basically claiming he was linked to muslim terrorists which a bit rejects as a young kid growing up into motion i'd to be embedded in some islamic state since city come though his indorsing unlike the european union teresa mayes desire to brand lebanese members of parliament terrorists what do you make of city girl injuries i'm a saying as a bull or must be as will a politician's bulletins was because it's terrorists the simple fact is you have to deal with who is in power and down yet. me and jeremy corbyn got

a lot of flak back in the early eighty's for your saying britain has to negotiate with the i right we need to end this conflict and we would denounce as pro terrorist and so on then about the best thing tony blair did when it became prime minister will sit down negotiate the i write and do a deal and you can't ignore they represent a substantial minority of opinion across the middle east and you couldn't negotiate with me so you have to like him don't act agree with them but they are there and they're not going to go away some people and certainly the daily mail newspaper saying that the labor of communicating these things properly in the mail saying that this is the fault of seamus milne the executive director of communications for the british labor party and reports in british media saying that the former head of m i six richard dearlove claims that someone like milne would not even be able to give and be given security clearance according to government which would in danger the national security this country what do you make of recent knowledge since i

mean seamus has just been a brilliant reporter and i mean all he's lying on me i don't think anyone seriously consider that he's an agent of i am proud to be a putin or something like that will trump. just finally identified i could catch security clearance obvious maffra is overseeing the the you know dealing with terrorism well just finally on venezuela because one of the reasons given for mike gapes who left the labor bottom of your body and the labor body was saying that coburn is roland syria russia and venezuela. i mean chambers mills dad used to run the b.b.c. you've been watching b.b.c. coverage why do you think suddenly media has its is just that my dura must go the british government must continue economic warfare against the government in this way look well this is. one of donald trump's objectives to get rid of the venezuelan government by. what we've had is america undermining the venezuelan

economy i mean attempting to overthrow the previous president chavez in the coup in two thousand and two and if you look at the the data now it's interesting that the levels of poverty that the question of of the economy ahead of population venezuela brazil and colombia and yet everything you. see as a basket case one of the reasons mature are still in power is a whole generation grew up under chavez and saw all the trend form for the better i truly. and he was the one who. said look. we will help you cut the fares for the on employed. in london he gave us i think about forty million. in order to. use a really good guy to negotiate with. america shouldn't be intervening in our

countries and trying to overthrow their governments it when we had the interventions in iraq in afghanistan in syria in libya what's been the legacy vast numbers of dead coyotes and civil war still continuing we should stop intervening in all the peoples countries when there was a thank you thank you after the break. the government social mobility commission explains the feeling of never getting anywhere no matter how hard you work. for a judge he walked on the ball literally as u.s. soldiers a bloody british past. join

me every thursday on the alex simon chill and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. warren buffett you know these doing the stock buybacks which is you know used to be illegal so recently that's completely fraudulent and yes no governance or oversight whatsoever you know he's a walking one of the biggest are the biggest shareholder wells fargo for example during that period when they were engaged in serial criminality when they were engaged in absolute fraud and he's a party to that so here's a guy who given unlimited credit at zero percent and his example from the rule of law still can't seem to make money for shareholders which is.

welcome back joining me now to give you some of the week's top stories is from a liberal democrat shouted secretary of state big lembit donald trump trying his best to sort out a nuclear war in the stuff that will stop it korea to continue to try to stop is meeting him sorry sorry sorry yes look at this just what he's trying to do that in this though is a problem the economic times says china urges india pakistan to exercise restraint after asked reichen might not be donald trump a tool that presses the button turns out that india has performed a nasty into pakistani french warplanes and allegedly to try and break up some terrorist groups but this border let's remember goes right back to the early seventy's when india and pakistan were not war so this is nuclear provocation and they know it such are the stakes people saying fifty percent of the ozone there would be destroyed yes but we've got to talk to their weapons and the problem with that is they're less destructive still kill hundreds of thousands of people. will

but it makes nuclear war more likely some say that's upping the stakes to the well that's now gone to hide from the chinese russian india talks china and russia obviously have been against this war in afghanistan for years still going on because of this this goes right back on hundred forty years almost the time supports my wand the afghan side of a british massacre looted by u.s. troops now the history here is that almost a thousand british and indian troops fighting together were killed at this location the remains were buried there more recently like very recently u.s. soldiers came across the site started digging it up found all kinds of trinkets binoculars to find this well of is there it is alleged and as we condemn the improper removal of objects from historic sites so it seems pretty likely that it's happened and it said a lot of this was shipped off to united states and sold to a collector why the coverage of this when more bombs were dropped last year than

ever six thousand bombs three thousand eight hundred civilians nine hundred children killed by u.s. bombing according to the united states five dishonors and afghan security personnel killed since twenty fourteen this war hasn't gone cool it's just gone off the radar in the western media well let's go to the new british and american and e.u. war against another country and richard branson pink floyd's roger waters slams richard branson for fronting u.s. trojan horse aid to venezuela short version here is richard branson has put together a massive musical concert to raise millions of pounds apparently to in defiance of the red cross and u.n. aid but in support of the u.s. attempts to bring aid into venezuela he's stumbled into a quagmire of politics here and doesn't seem to understand the nuances which you've already in fired in your introduction to this piece is you don't get this you know because the for i should say the foreign min. this week mr area has been on this

show says the three million refugees fleeing venezuela he denied that figure he also denied inflation is one million percent in venezuela and says negotiations are continuing with the trumpet ministration well known reporting on the world that's how biased the reporting is nobody really knows exactly where to draw the line in terms of what the americans are saying and what madeira saying waters in rather colorful language is saying that branson is doing this to promote himself rather than just a joy he would deny that any major is amazing as we have to go to economic war with venezuela because of the poor and your next story is about the poor berlin in london oh and in a very dark story the mirror southern rail worker pulls dirty water on the homeless man in front of horrified passengers now this took place in a rather wealthy part of london called sutton and presumably not thinking and it was watching him he was filmed pouring water not once but a number of times from a bucket wish he had used to clean the ground on this one he even took the trouble

a part of prodding the man to wake him up the socialist gentleman and then soaked him with this water but what kind of country do we have now when this kind of thing is happening in the nation's capital just the fact that nobody he thought nobody was watching is hardly any justification and with a neuroscientist on the other week telling us about attitudes to the poor we what next guess is going to talk about meritocracy this feeling that is being engender amongst people who have enough to eat that maybe they just made the wrong life choices is the only way of consciously coping with this albeit that the air pollution this week was bad enough if that doesn't get you but there's some other psychology here as well ash and this is a hierarchy of disempowerment we've got people kicking each other from the top to the bottom not much kicking going on at the top of course and this perhaps suggests that the social condition of this country is far. are far more fragile than the

government would have you believe. well reports of tens of thousands allegedly killed by tourism is welfare policies alone are slamming the un for its report on british extreme poverty don't make the news much here in britain today meanwhile season ngo telling parliament the bank bailout will start he looks at to create record child poverty but is inequality not just about the twenty eight crash but something more profound in british society and is the political goal of america graphic society part of the problem joining me now is a l.s.e. academic and member of the government social mobility commission dr sam freedman co-author of the class ceiling why pays to be privileged so i'm welcome to going underground so it's widely accepted that media t.v. journalism is all. or has a degree of power you begin you choose to begin the book the glass ceiling with some character called mark using this character to talk about class privilege whose

mark was a story so mark was. a sort of senior commissioner at the broadcaster that we were looking at and he really represented i think a really interesting example of somebody whose career had sort of preceded an incredible sort of pace and what was really interesting was sort of digging into his career and seeing how really in his words he sort of started the race with a number of advantages that parents were successful professionals he'd been educated in one of the top private schools he went on to oxford more broadly there was this sense of of mark acknowledging throughout his description of his career how he'd been able to sort of fit in with what he called the tele tripe all of these forces together had been sort of pivotal in what he said was a sort of following wind heard frank his entire career trajectory he did well. very

well he was if it was this guy i would have to say not work better or a better say that. but if you were going to broaden this out in a second break. you allege that that shows that there's a huge bias towards elite privilege in this country to which of course the immediate thing we're going to cover of course is people saying oh but what about those individuals that come from working class backgrounds or do really well they prove that there is no class ceiling anyone if they work hard enough and i know they're going to get divert they can make it yeah i mean i think i mean it's important to say from the off that of course many people do from working class backgrounds get to the very top but i suppose that's why in a way what we want to start by doing this we find a robust evidence base actually so investigate this question so we started looking at great britain's biggest employment labor force and isolating those working in the occupations and then examining their class backgrounds and then looking at that

within those occupations to see well is it really the case that those from working class backgrounds get on and do as well and actually what we found is that on average about sixteen percent less than their privileged colleagues and particularly in important sectors you show that media law medicine in the u.k. are a closed shop to you those who are for the u.k. elites that also was repeated by the social mobility commission appointed by the government here you're on it how damaging is a closed shop for media law and meds and given the powerful they are. to society i mean i think it's just if we tell ourselves this story of a sort of meritocratic ideal and you know we found it throughout the interviews we did through this book that people very much sign up to this is something that most people in britain sign up to and i think you know two hundred. to your first

question. there are certain sectors that have a sort of outsized importance on our culture i mean if you think about media and the culture of creative industries these are the people who you know tell the stories that most of us in britain used to understand the world we live around us it's incredibly important those people and the people making decisions particularly those in the most powerful roles are representative of the entire country that we live in the way of this idea of meritocracy being a good thing come from anywhere for most of the twentieth century it was seen as a pretty idiotic kind of way of organizing society when you talk about this very brewer and now politicians are saying you know legitimate fortune is part of people's upbringing how did that suddenly change because people probably don't remember when it was an insult i think there is this sense that people want to feel that they have a right to the positions that they've gained and i think that you know that has

been sort of ramped up in in the last few years but i think it's a it's a fairly old idea to some extent what you see this sort of systematic issues here it's not about any one individual and i think it's important to and don't necessarily single people out in that way but we understand these things are working on a more systematic level to sort of create barriers for so much abuse here we're saying systematic level that it's a lie in the main the if you work as hard as you can. that you can make it make your way in society or was most alarming to some people who may already be saying this and they already would say ok the bullingdon club private schools cameron blair and so you say there's no evidence that those who do well work harder. all have better training or more experience when you look at this systematic difference in earnings in early occupations a new subject that to the sort of statistical analysis that allows you to call

control or adjust for these potentially meritocratic difference is in educational attainment in experience in the hours you work you find that it makes fairly little impact on that class pay gap and i think what that sort of showing is that there must be other factors at play even though those are the drivers that we tend to think of as explaining income inequality the bank of mum and people being able to just. when you're going through any. you also look at the club and social codes you sort of. have a gate keepers warders dress taste educated. so this is i mean what we found is that you know you do it with a few twenty's or. yeah it was interesting but you mention the one nine hundred twenty s. what you find is that most of these occupations the notion of what is appropriate

in the workplace in terms of you know conduct behavior culture is actually a sort of remnant of historically who has done that sort of work in the past and how they've been to him able to sort of embed even institutionalized their version of of what's the right way to be in the workplace and i suppose the key thing there is to actually strip it back and say. to what extent can we reliably say that those sorts of behavioral codes are actually tied to intelligence or in tied to belittle or even performance i think that relationship is fairly flimsy and in fact what they tend to be are elements that are very much linked to the sort of baggage of a class of the privileged class background that are misread often in workplaces as a sign of talent as a sign of ability as a sign of potential going to give it to the private school boys in the main you

talk about how the disenfranchised are then toward to blame themselves for the fact they don't get all somehow through all this there's a there's a way of making the people who feel they have to blame i think that's the thing i mean that's i think for me that's one of the really damaging things about an uncritical meritocratic sort of narrative is what it does say implicitly if you don't make it then there must be something deficient in your character or in your ability to work rather than sort of understanding that actually the game is fairly rigged from the start and that people have the stratified starting point dr friedman thank you and that's it for the show will be back on saturday following us taliban peace talks in doha to investigate allegations of cia backed death squads with afghan border vision malalai joya even touch social media so you don't have to .

do your. no not. since one of the the little. the world can't afford to return to the unrestrained competition of the cold war. was the plea made by the un secretary general this week with the u.s. . and russia rolling out new nuclear weaponry should we be more worried about the

weapons themselves or the people who have the codes. pakistan says it has shot down two indian air force jets over disputed kashmir capturing two pilots as the nuclear armed rivals violence escalate. the claim that wiki leaks founder julian assange met with trump's former campaign chairman paul mann afford could take a new turn. as r.t. received response to a freedom of information act request sent to london police. and the issue of wiki leaks has also raised in the u.s. congress.