you have read that but biden is still a that's the one that connects really in several key states ballot counting remains under way it's still to all the early to call anything. but just to recap the latest for you in more shaping up to be another extraordinary u.s. election speaking to supporters earlier donald trump says he will take the vote count to the supremes court claiming victory on tainting get pro-democrat forward his opponent joe biden has also pledged he's on track to win and all this comes as ballot counting is still underway in some states they without t.v. for the very latest throughout the day.

now imagine or times you're going underground as the world looks on to the fallout of the us presidential election and his england sits on the eve of a 2nd coronavirus lockdown after the boris johnson government fails to prevent a 2nd wave coming up in the show i remember very clearly i can still taste and smell it the mounting panic ahead of school holidays because the income we heard could not stretch to feeding 2 boys and a mother in that day. marcus rush wouldn't have this and probably only this in common we remember not in our heads we do not hold bodies.

an old etonian of course can't be expected to have the same experience ahead of another national lockdown is class war being waged in our name we speak to labor panel griffith's of the report about old etonian boris johnson's ability to protect the most vulnerable in our society will the 2nd lockdown kill off the multi-billion pound culture industry in britain we speak to enter shikari 0 reynolds about why he has written to u.k. johnson the ritchie son of about saving the arts almost more coming up in today's going underground but 1st while the united states comes to terms with election 2020 nato partner britain is facing a coronavirus crisis england is on the eve of a national lockdown with the threat of a new me konami depression spiraling homelessness and suicide rates and children going hungry you can pm boris johnson has refused to extend a free school meals program to over a 1000000 children which has sparked outrage across the political spectrum joining me now from london is low. would griffith a very porter who has been raising the issue in britain 2nd chamber the house of

lords thank so much not given for coming on using a seat in the house of lords to campaign for the expansion of free school meals what is it like to live on them. well when i was a small child i did little nym and the memory hasn't faded i was raised in a one parent family in poor circumstances and my mother was on benefits and the only money she had was the pittance that came from that benefit so she counted on this the preschool me at the. yard of the schools they went to and i know that when it came to the holidays sheba's fearful that she would not have the sort of budget that would allow it to put food on the table in a world of growing boys needs i remember the pentagon remember the fear right members haggard face a member of the anxieties just as much to do with a sense of impending doom as it is

a part of what i ate and what i did the now of course you know that british prime minster of our strengths and says money has been given to local councils to help children universal credit the relatively new social security system as being increased for poor and children why why you criticising why have you been criticising our strengthen his government over not extending the free school meals program to say. well regarded the stand he's got to this point politically let alone morally the fact is that he's right the money has been given to councils who according to the priorities they set will decide where to place the question of school meals for children and these councils are 10 years of suffering from austerity and cut backs on a massive scale and some of those comes to the needy areas will in fact find it

difficult to prioritise school bills and they have other public services to prioritise attend to also there are some of the car councils will take the money that boris johnson talks about and apply it to provide meals with a little help for children through the holiday period but other councils will have different priorities and won't so the thrust of my argument and concern is that the present method to dealing with what is definitely a problem is likely to lead to a postcode lottery provision some people and predictably it will be the people in the poorest areas always suffer in these cases who will go without the meals it wasn't really that much of an issue in the us election campaign 40000000 couldn't eat without food stamps the night of the election people are going to wonder why the 6th richest economy on a one needs a food stamp type program like free school meals instead of promise actual security

payments being made today adequate levels of the families can feed themselves we're talking about 1314000 children yes well i mean that is a very nice philosophical question for journalists and people like myself to ask i look at it as marcus rash but look at it from the point of view of the children concerned whether or not it is a proper way to do it the fact is in these policies times that we're living in there will be children who will go without food and who was for. emilie's will suffer accordingly through the school holidays this is a 1st aid response remember boris johnson so we are going to wait to be are going to the summit duly u.-turn provided and provided a lot of political capital room so i doing it i don't understand where you can see that you could do that again it's not going to cost in the grand scheme of things in these difficult times. you might get money to achieve you mention marcus rash from the football superstar england football superstar of course you must have heard in the house of commons the 1st chamber in parliament that one m.p.

called him a virtue signal if talking about free school meals in the 1st place it's only because you're on a decent television channel that i won't tell you what i call him. ok well i'm back to that commons debate maybe was more civilised in the moon's tory m.p. ben bradley who said he was taken out of context and deleted the tweet actually he said at one school in mansfield 75 percent of kids have a social worker 25 percent of parents are illiterate one kid lives in a cracked and another in a brothel extending free school meals doesn't reach these kids effectively gives cash he seemed to be saying although he says he was taken out of context directly to a crackdown on a brothel. well i'm not going to try to defend remarks like that made by someone to whom you should put the question but i am going to say that i really repeat the fact that there will be children who tunes who have that they will be families who

suffered terribly because of sustenance and nourishment will be denied them it's unbelievably true and it's it's it's whether there's a mistake and when there's a there's an error that the margin of error in the way we provide and the money goes in and directions we can control is neither here nor there as far as i'm concerned it is a moral duty knowing the problem exists make a uniform and measured response when trying to achieve the feeding of children what can be more clear than not i don't think johnson even raised the issue of means testing context to the free school meals debate is this at heart a class war issue you said in the house of lords and all the tony and of course commie expected to have had the same experience. well i mean look question of class is a very proper one to ask in britain i have to say all i'm telling you is that when i had no footwear that it would footwear to to wear to school where we lived in one

room in a graveyard where my mother was sick those depended on benefits i know how difficult it was to break out of what was like a slavery really in the school holidays in order to put food on the table for me the important thing is to make sure that we do in in a uniform way across the country abreast this need are not the way that markets russia the 22 year old young man has really rallied the country behind him in a way that politicians don't rush for nick was born in one of the poorest areas of britain but why mention what's the relevance of where boris johnson went to school where will come on i mean. it want me to rebirth. perhaps just perhaps just my class prejudice that would say things about people i know lots of old etonians and a decent enough people but they do not understand poverty they do not on the boat

understand opportunity they have to be a fabulous amount of money behind and what in those schools they do not understand and i said mean that and i wish that we wake up to about fact as a country now of course you know the coronavirus pandemic is presumably what the north has been discussing quite a lot the responses to it there's obviously a lot of money to go around during the pandemic while these free school meals are being denied during halftime and perhaps during christmas what have you made. for instance dido harding's track and trace commission by the british government as britain is being having one of the worst the 7 death rates on earth. well i mean i'm not going to comment on that one but i'm going to recognize behind your question attracted a huge amount of money going to old mines of money being directed towards the

various needs and factors that are affecting us across the country there's no doubt about that and it's going to be a dreadful job for the child it struck up a government 'd once we weathered this storm triangle something back together again i don't deny that for a moment and there are lots of places where when we have time to look at it all because point the finger and address our criticisms but you know neither the it'll be too late then a national audit office mosque at davis investigating right now pandemic contract after the department of health and social care agreed 11000000000 in the 5 months to september i mean do you agree with him about the concern about transparency over all these contracts being given to private companies join the pandemic. i think that there are a lot of pressure has to be asked yes it is too late to wait for afterwards to be reflective and so on so for them but there are 2 jobs to do one is to try as

quickly as possible to identify needs know and address them as best we can and secondly we will have to learn from this program late in the day it is because i'm pretty sure it will be another one of these states coming before too long that the shame for me is that we didn't anticipate. something like this happening before now ok i'm on those contracts and fantasy that harding hasn't his the anti-corruption champion of our strengthens anti-corruption champion but you're not concerned at the moment in the nords itself is not doing any investigative work as to how these contracts are being meted out i understand there being some of them being made with no going to tender or a competition well i read the newspaper reports the same as you have and i do know people on our benches my benches i'm a labor party person who are who have exactly the same concerns that you're expressing and are asking probing questions about them to seeking satisfaction

there is a process of inquiry and interrogation happening and i'm not party to that's not my neck of the woods in terms of the things accident on but it concerns you expressed a real i do believe that in these attenuated times when government is working in a 100 manner and therefore we have to work very very hard to keep on top of things but i do believe that the debate is happening but we come to an agreement about this week next week will have been overtaken by events came under attack by the from the un special rapporteur on poverty as austerity of the 20 weight crisis hit but it was cameron talked about a big society given there aren't as we speak any free school meals programs being meted out apart from no clue council jurisdictions. will charities just have to intervene and in fact will some on the tory benches be saying this is an example

of the great. big society filling in while these free school meals aren't denied from the government and in fact that's an ideologically better way to organize society well i have to say that since 'd again the footballer marcus trash would came out and and spearheaded this campaign in the summer 1st of all but again no i mean it has been astonishing the response to this come not just from civil society but from the world of commerce i mean rest or 'd all those i'm definitely one of the roma. there is there is an enormous response so 'd i think that that's good but once again it is who is going to treat those responses will hit the mark in places on the whole that do better than other places that don't do so well yes they 'd hear that indeed that the charitable sector. 3rd

sector yes the local authorities there will be some response but it will be kind of a stroke of luck if you default in your neck of the woods or griffiths thank you. after the break will a 2nd lockdown in england finish off the multi-billion pound art sector in britain . and the current front man reynolds explains the class dimension of the u.k. government's culture recovery fund we ask of a universal basic income could be the only solution to saving the music industry all this and more coming up in part 2 of going underground.

as expected ballots are still being counted but what we do know about this election that it's close in the country is deeply divided over the lessons to be learned was it enough to bring this election as a referendum on. welcome back in part one we discussed the worst off in england on the eve of tomorrow's mass lockdown one area hit hardest by the pandemic in the effects of lockdown has been the creative industries that could lose 4 $100000.00 jobs this year while the government is appealing to urge those in the arts to retrain for other vocations the lead singer of rock band enjoy shikari reynolds has written a letter to the u.k. chancellor richardson and pleading with him to save a life music industry that could potentially lose almost 2 thirds of its workforce by christmas going underground deputy editor charlie cook caught up with him earlier rao thank you so much for coming on going underground just by telling us about the latter you wrote to the u.k. chancellor recent yes thanks for having me yeah but let's it's

a ritchie. basically kind of summarizing the state of the music industry as i say at the moment. really just asking all pleading for them to sort of do more for the the arts for the for culture the music industry i suppose especially because that's been the hardest hit. and it will be the last industry to sort of resurface from the rubble as well because it relies so much on live events and gigs on shows and obviously it everything's been been canceled and rescheduled and canceled again keep using the joke that it's like trading as x. we're not sure when we can play if gigs are going to be a thing or if they're not at the moment. so yeah it was it was just a letter sort of trying to fill everyone in on what it's like from my perspective and maybe even not so much my perspective but from perspective from the perspective

of people in the industry who clearly aren't being supported tolly you know i have some what a privilege somewhat of a pedestal and a fan base so i can keep myself going for a little bit but there's people 'd who i know in the industry who are just clueless and quite worried and fearful of for their own futures of mine well the culture secretary oliver down has been town to his 1570000000 pound recovery funders of the biggest single investment in the arts as he says in the history of the nation $257000000.00 of that is going to save $1300.00 theaters museums and venues and what not doing that's too little too late or is not enough i mean you know we have to acknowledge that that's a significant amount of money and it is getting to some venue's theaters organizations orchestras i was going through the list last night and so that benny's small venues like a chain reason south and its image as

a great venue that we supply is getting 50000 but then there's these massive discrepancies so you've got 1000000 going to secret cinema and the ministry of sound and then you've got like 34000000 going to english heritage and historic day . role places like highclere castle in hampshire which is where downton abbey is filmed so i don't think i think there's a lot of misunderstanding about the serious scope of what this culture of recovery fund is actually funding you know it's the music industry itself which is surely one of the most drastically hit industries that there is i'm not sure how much money will actually find its way to the artists or the actors the performers the dances you know and that's even before we get to the supporting like roles as in like our sound design as a lying design as stage technicians you know the list just goes on and on and on yeah i was going to do it more money should go directly to those to those freelancers and to the whole army of freemont that work around the music industry

yeah i mean i i said at the beginning this thing i thought universal basic income would be the most sort of logical thing now that amount of research and testing that going into that some form of basic income i think would have taken away a lot of the problems and you know if we all have an income as a citizen i think we wouldn't be in the drastic position that we're in with these these vast inequalities in how people are being able to support themselves during this crisis i've seen you know i've already got like. production manager for instance is looking at his cash flow and working out whether he'll have to sell his house early next year if his job hunting continues to file which for a lot of people is because there's not many jobs around and you know as it is and even if they get these sort of retraining opportunities how are they spaces for themselves whilst they're retraining that there's

a lot of lot of questions and it's become a very sort of messy way to deal with it so i'm not i'm not sure what i'm going to do i'm so hanging on a moment i'm writing a book but for lots of people it's it's a lot. more difficult it's you know having to look at serious questions. for their vocation you know in a complete level so it's it's very some people are going through serious amounts of anxiety and difficulties in trying to work out what their life now tape takes that we've suddenly decided that music and culture isn't worth saving doing as a class element in fact that high culture seems to be prioritised your ballets your operas and kind of indian alternative in clubs are not so covered by this fast traunch of money from the cult sector yeah i think to a certain extent that's to be expected because i doubt a lot you know that's why i made a few sort of snide the jokes in the letter i wrote i doubt

a lot of this government has much of a or no idea of just how beneficial the lowbrow or you know how everyone is grab it sectors are but of course they're providing. really community as well as like mental health support. for hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country but i think that they're often overlooked but that we're sort of used to that to a certain extent i didn't expect that to be esp as pacific fund you know going to sort of pop rock alternative you know those types of cultures. so yeah it just makes it all the more harder for people involved in those industries. i'm speaking to other artists and poets and one on this issue in science said that because our and it's bastard kind of challenge power and challenge politics that it's not ever going to really be a priority for politicians to fund it because it's at its best an antagonistic

force in a way yeah i think yeah i think that's a good point i think there's going to be a lot of those sorts of. arts and music scenes and cultures that yeah will just be sort of overlooked because it's another it's another win in the general culture war isn't it it's just like oh we can we can sort of chop off the limbs of a few of those areas that are sort of chipping away at us if you like in terms of criticism. and i think that that's a general direction anyway that politics is taken as an it department for education categorized anti-capitalism as an extreme political stance and and dissuaded on a dissuaded of people say they can't use any sort of show like that in education and so there's this real sort of narron of the of the blinkered way that we look at the world which i think is the complete wrong way to be looking at the moment

amount of problems that we're in amount of serious structural difficulties that we're in i think now more than ever we need like serious broad thinking of how we can create a more sustainable. a more stable society and you talk in your latter on and also in your music about kind of community and unity more generally and drink a lot of the kind of issues where it is because of a kind of thought to right commitment to the individual and that's the reason why the government maybe doesn't seem use it as a priority it doesn't see the funding of public services as a priority there's that this general sort of mindset i don't know whether we can call it mere liberalism or whether it has some even broader sense where there is basically this this mindset of self interest of that is the driving force not just behind economics but just sort of society. i think you know for one the pandemic has as proven how you know barry said that himself to me about about how that there

is certainly such a thing as a society and i think it proves that we're just one organism we all affect each other on a global scale. and i think looking at society in a in a more sort of scientific or rational way to that we are you know one working organism together on one planet with one chance at surviving i think it needs to be nice to happen now more than ever. and just finally tell me about your the book you're working on the just mentioned based on your most recent album. yes yes so we released an album at the at the start of lockdown basically at the beginning of all this which was a very difficult because it took out kind of. our plans of how to promote it how to toll the album. and i'm now writing the sort of a i guess the accompaniment guide to the 'd to the music which it looks

at. kind of the word possibility really the fact that it's gone from something that we we salute to the future and we used to be like infused by the train to vittie the possibility and you know everything that was kind of good about life was right there to be taken whereas i not now i think over the last so decade or 5 years especially so many things happened happened that we would never never thought were possible. and it's become something that's quite daunting now to look at the future especially with all the existential threats that we face from climate change to the ongoing nuclear threat and to also the more sort of subtle threats of a polarized society and i think that the these subtle ways that the online world has changed us and divided us and reinforced. all of that polarization so it's a yes it's a kind of us a sobering book about cyber subjects but i think it's sort of trying to just

encourage a general discussion to just been this idea of there is no alternative which is one of the track tiles on the album and just to say now more than ever like we do not care about this left right divide we just want rational scientific. measured like talk not even debate because debate is just is just competition is just more shouting the loudest make another person look silly catching them out i don't think that's helpful it's also it's all about sitting down and trying to have calm conversations into what we can do structurally to fix the problems that we're in and i just want to ask you because it comes to mind i don't know if you consider your band a political band but that's one of the funny thoughts about the kind of stigma that the tom political ban comes because usually puts you in quite a narrow box. yeah we've we've had to deal with that for years we just call it the peace. because yeah i think especially for the u.s.

politics can can be something that you look at and you just see old men bickering. and it can be a very difficult thing to be infused by. so i think that the more that we have this divided quite hostile or at least terribly in civil society the harder is to get people into thinking about broader subjects thinking about perspective thinking about how politics affects their lives and what they can do as individuals to try to actively make the world a better place so you know we've struggled with with that. for the majority of our career but i think it's something that we have we're constantly motivated to push forward on by the people that we meet who have been in fees to get into politics more at least discuss it and kind of educate themselves on the the wider. things that our society faces. thank you so much thanks so much for having me and

reynolds there speaking to going on the ground deputy editor charlie cook that's over the show will be back on saturday when we return to the u.s. to look at what we can expect from the next 4 years in a superpower facing economic racial and health crises and subscribe to going on the ground on you tube and join us on twitter facebook instagram and.

her chart in r.t. we believe we're on track to win this election this is the role of the american public so we'll be going to the u.s. supreme court a nation divided finding claims he's winning the u.s. presidential election while donald trump threatens to take decisions to the supreme court and what he sees as a quote fraud but i don't currently have 238 electors to 213 but key state ballots remain to be counted. 11 area results coming in one violent things a rapid clashes between protesters and the police in several cities across the west including washington d.c. . the reaction is coming in from.