Coco Kahn

Do you think that... You know, we've just started off this conversation talking about the US election. Donald Trump has a close relationship to Nigel Farage. That makes him more of an asset, you could say, to the right side of Commons. Do you think that this could be the worst possible result for the Conservatives or...?

Unsurprisingly, this went down like a lead balloon with Commonwealth leaders who in their conference agreement insisted that the time has come for a conversation about reparatory justice. Joining us now is Belle Ribeiro-Addy, the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for African reparations to discuss what justice might look like.

Belle, welcome to Pod Save the UK.

It also makes me think, you know, we're all talking about a Labour government for 10 years. And this is a bit of a shock because it kind of reminds you, oh no, I mean, anything could change at the next election even. Absolutely.

And we had an episode with Laura Trevelyan and Clive Lewis, and they were talking about, you know, the case of reparations as well. And there was one insight that really stuck with me where they were talking about what would the money that the UK pays to, let's just say, a Caribbean nation, what would it be used for? Well, probably a substantial amount of it would be for climate security.

You would say that actually a move like this would make the world a safer place, a better place, would not only be moral, but smart.

You know, what you've outlined there are quite radical changes and I would argue would threaten a lot of positions of power of certain people, certain organisations. And so perhaps that would explain some of the reluctance. But before that, surely saying sorry is free. We could just do that.

I do just want to ask you, though, it must have provoked a bit of soul searching in the Labour Party, though. You know, yet to have a woman leader, you know, not doing so great on issues of race. I mean, I'm just throwing it out there. What do you think?

Interesting. Absolutely. I would just add, sorry, we'll let you go, Bill. But I just, I'm very aware, you know, we're talking to you and you're in Diane Abbott's office. We're just talking.

Right, okay. Exactly.

There will be hell to pay, actually. Look, she's a titan of politics, but she's also the target of so much racist abuse, sexist abuse. And, you know, because we were just talking earlier about like how the conservatives are doing better. You could say better, whatever, quotation marks better around diversity than Labour are.

But one of the things I often think about is like if you're a woman of colour in the Labour Party, you just get pilloried.

in the press they're constantly talking about you as being not competent and then maybe it's no surprise that then the Labour leaders are like well don't put them front and centre they'll get pilloried in the press and it's like a vicious circle of like the public the press and do you know what I mean like in a way I wonder if we all need to take responsibility for our role in the public as well

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And then it sort of softly creates this manufactured opinion of our diverse politicians that, you know, they're not good enough. Well, they're not good enough. Whereas the Tories, they don't really get that. Anyway, rant over. No, you're absolutely right. Angry about it. We get it all the time. In journalism, we get it as well.

If you have a POC byline, you'll just get rinsed. way more than you would if I was just John Smith. I'm just going to become John Smith, right? You heard it here first. I'm changing. I'm changing my work.

Now, this week the government also announced a rise in student fees for next year. It'll be the first rise in eight years and it matches inflation at 3.1%.

The National Union of Students called the move a sticking plaster, however pointed to the increase in maintenance loans provided to students to support their living expenses while in university as something that would have a positive impact on the poorer students struggling with the cost of living.

Now, while this rise is not like the trebling of university fees under David Cameron's coalition government, it's still going to affect thousands of students across the country. And so we're going to be diving into the issues next week. So we'd like to know your thoughts.

Oh, I don't know. Just having a very long bath. One week long bath, shrivel like a prune.

No, no. Also, Elon Musk, he's definitely had a role in all of this, so I just... Wait, I mean, you don't need to...