Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Global Player original podcast. Kemi Badenoch is calling for a return to common sense.
Common sense is a cop-out of a phrase. That I say common sense and everyone nods and everyone's thinking something entirely different.
I am absolutely astonished at the number of politicians, including now Kemi Badenoch, who seem absolutely certain about what happened that night with Henry Novak.
Chapter 2: What evidence does Kemi Badenoch provide to support her claim about racism in Britain?
So why is she now thinking that this is fertile political ground? Modern Britain is the least racist country on earth. I speak from experience. As a child, I lived on three different continents.
Chapter 3: How does Kemi Badenoch define 'common sense' in relation to political discourse?
I have seen what life is like for ethnic minorities in other places. There is nowhere else on earth I'd rather be. There is nowhere else on earth that I would be doing the job that I'm doing right now as a black woman in a majority white country.
It is because we are not racist, because we care so much about equality, that we have overcorrected and actually brought in rules that are actually discriminatory. That is Kemi Badenoch saying her party would seek to abolish a duty for teachers.
for nurses, for police officers to consider the equalities law because she thinks fear of being racist means authorities are not stopping tragedies from happening.
She wants the whole debate on identity politics to change. She believes it's seeped into too many areas of our public life. Is she right? Welcome to The News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Maylis. It's Lewis. And Kemi Badenoch is following up from last week when she was actually widely praised for her response to Henry Novak.
But she is choosing to make a bigger argument here in a speech that she's made today. As Emily was saying, she wants to scrap rules that require government bodies such as schools, hospitals, police to consider promoting equality in their decisions. We're taking a step back here. She's in a way doing a sort of halfway house from where Labour and Reform are. Reform want to scrap.
The Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act 2010 has proved a really totemic piece of legislation, which has affected all sorts of things that government does. It was passed at the very basically the last big law that the Labour government actually got on a statute book back in 2010 before that government left office. And the Tories are saying they don't want to scrap it entirely.
It protects people with protected characteristics, whether it's sex or sexism. race or sexuality. But they are saying they want to scrap a very important part of it, which is something that sounds dull, but it has been very important, which is the public sector equality duty, the PSED. What does that do? Well, it requires public bodies carrying out public functions to have due regard for
to those characteristics and to advance equality of opportunity between people who share and people who do not share relevant protected characteristics, i.e. they need to think about how they promote equality between people in everything that they do.
And Kemi Badenoch's argument is to say that that bit of the legislation basically leads to outcomes, as we've seen with the police, she argues, and Henry Novak, where they are too worried, these organisations, worried about actually advancing equality and looking like they're advancing equality for discriminated groups rather than doing their job. This is a bit more of what she had to say.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Public Sector Equality Duty in Kemi Badenoch's argument?
Do you really know that you're speaking for millions of people? And of course, we all want common sense in the application of law. And clearly what happened in the Henry Novak case, things went badly wrong. And maybe this was about implementation. I think we've just got to be careful before we say, OK, all this equality stuff, all this public service equality duty is a load of old nonsense.
We need to get rid of that. We need to be kind of a little more careful about analysing this stuff that we know for certain that the police acted in the way that they did in Southampton because of this. Or was it something else? Or what was what were the other factors in play? Of course, we don't want to see the law being applied in the way that the police did.
on that dreadful night in Southampton. It was disastrous. No one is making any bones about that. But you could easily have the pendulum swinging back the other way and say, OK, you're free to do whatever you like. And as a society, do we really believe when we look at who's got power in this country, who controls things in this country,
that the white man is now the victim of discrimination and that they are the downtrodden person in terms of power prestige finance wealth status in this society and i'm just not sure that there's any evidence to back that up look that there is um i felt in a way um
Chapter 5: How does Kemi Badenoch link equality laws to crime prevention?
initially being away last week following the Henry Novak stuff abroad, I've increasingly felt, not for the first time with these matters, that there are just twin realities operating, right? I mean, absolutely, it is worth having a conversation and a discussion about how pieces of law, important law like the Equalities Act, are actually translating it in practice.
It may well be that on some occasions, I'm sure it's true, that certain public bodies have been a little too officious or have been a little bit too, have decided to go further than actually the law. suggest they should. The actual law is more limited than some of its critics suggest.
And it may be true that certain types of anti-discrimination training and so on have occasionally created a culture which isn't good. We know that there are occasions where the culture of fear of the accusation of racism has been a pernicious one. Obviously, we saw that most clearly with the grooming gang scandal.
But there's a very clear difference there, isn't there, between, say, the grooming gang scandal, where we had years' worth of evidence which has come forward, we've had people look into it, and we've had exact occasions which we can see, either in email or documents or whatever, where we can say, yes, this has been pernicious.
I am absolutely astonished at the number of politicians, including now Camille Badenoch, who seem absolutely certain about what happened that night with Henry Novak. And absolutely certain what the genesis was. Absolutely certain what was going through the heads of those police officers that night. Right.
that the policing culture has become too sensitive to racism allegations and specifically as a result of, say, the Equalities Act, the National Police Chief Counsel's Police Race Action Plan, which includes language saying police should not necessarily treat everyone the same or be colourblind, but seek racial equity and so on.
They are pointing the finger at that culture and those documents and saying this is likely to be part of what we saw that night. Let us just not forget, at this stage, before any of the inquiries are concluded, before the police chief counsel have looked into it, there is no hard evidence whatsoever that that specific guidance directly caused the officers to arrest or handcuff Henry Novak or...
or influenced what they did that night and yet if you would listen to a lot of the right-wing commentary a lot of the politicians on the right in this country you would think that they would know for a fact that the police officers that night when they were making the decisions they were making literally thinking hmm what does the national police chief council's police race action plan say i should do in this situation a do we think that's likely and even if it did happen which maybe it did and maybe the wider culture did lead to it in some way maybe the
They don't know that yet. And so therefore propose to dismantle a lot of this legislation, which has been important on the basis, frankly, so far of supposition seems crazy to me.
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Chapter 6: What examples does Kemi Badenoch use to illustrate her points about crime and equality?
And the USA isn't. And all these countries are banned. And I was in Senegal very recently and I spoke to fans there who can't go. And they went to Russia and they went to Qatar. They can't go to the USA. They can't get a visa. Yeah.
But I guess in a way that's obvious, isn't it? Because Qatar felt, I mean, so lucky to have got a World Cup that they probably shouldn't have got Russia the same. There was talk of all those infrastructure deals being done, you know, energy deals, gas deals being done into, you know, between governments in Qatar. Right.
So they knew that they lucked out onto this one, whereas Trump, I guess, feels like, you know, America is the centre of the world anyway.
Yeah, and I saw a good stat that was Infantino, the president of FIFA, the sort of somewhat sinister cartoon villain president of FIFA... Who gave Trump the gold statue. Who gave Trump the gold statue, the FIFA Peace Prize, said that the US is 3% of the football economy, of the GDP of football. The US is 25% of the GDP of the world economy, so... Yeah.
In FIFA terms, they think, look at all that catching up to do. We can make so much money here because, I mean, I was just in New York and it's kind of getting big there. The Arsenal stuff was big there. You know, on the sort of liberal types, people that go on holiday to Europe, it's kind of been growing with those people for a while.
But I think in the middle, in places like Texas, which I talk about in the book, I think it's getting bigger quite quickly amongst kids, amongst younger people. And there's just so much money on the table there. In a way, they've kind of exhausted all the money. In Europe, in Latin America, there's not much more money to be made. But if you can break Texas, there's billions of pounds to be made.
Right. Isn't it much easier hosting a World Cup when you're a slightly autocratic government, where you don't have parliamentary scrutiny, where no one is saying, what the hell are we doing spending all this money on this vanity project? And therefore that you can explain a certain number of the World Cups, Qatar, Russia, going back into history, you know, 78, Argentina, you know, where you're...
It's sport washing is the phrase that is used. Where you're just thinking, well, okay, it's quite a bit of money, but look what we gain at the end of it.
Yes, because if you look at the two World Cups before that, Brazil and South Africa, two sort of slightly fragile democracies, and it turned into a bit of a nightmare. I mean, Brazil more so than South Africa, but I was in Brazil quite recently and it's a total mess, the 2014 World Cup. I mean, it's seen as a sort of profound, almost, well, Brazil lost 7-1 against Germany.
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Chapter 7: How do the hosts critique Kemi Badenoch's perspective on equality and discrimination?
That's the allocation.
Or locals. So Los Angeles, where two of the games are, has a massive Iranian community. Probably most of them would end up with those, but Iranian fans. But they're terrified of these protests. And one thing interesting is 30 years ago, you could just not put those on TV. But now everyone's got a smartphone. And so if there are protests, it will make its way into the world.
I mean, Emily read the subtitle of your book, which is how football shirts explain global politics, money and power. Aren't we seeing in this World Cup greed on a scale that we haven't seen before? I mean, the kind of obvious kind of easy one is the New Jersey transit fare that has gone from $11 to $150 or whatever it is.
I haven't sold any tickets. It's cheaper to get an Uber if you're in Manhattan and you want to go there. They haven't sold any tickets for that train.
Yeah, exactly. Where people have been. FIFA have said to the hoteliers, the transit companies, you're going to make a fortune. You can make so much money. Everyone is going to want to go. You can just put up whatever price you want. And the reality is that actually it is price sensitive and people aren't paying these ridiculous sums of money.
exactly I was in New York a week or two ago and had friends there who kind of want to go to the World Cup but aren't going to spend and it's just hold your nerve if anyone's watching this living in a host city just wait until the day before and you can't guarantee it but you might be able to get a pretty good value ticket because that's the way supply and demand works they don't want empty stadiums so probably just a few days before it might be quite affordable
So what do you think this World Cup is? The conversation we're having now, I'm very conscious, is the classic conversation you have days out from the start of a tournament where people are looking at the problems. And then once the World Cup starts, all people are talking about are, did you see the goal that X scored? Did you see that saved by goalkeeper Y? Will it become like that?
Or do you think there is something that is different about this World Cup because of the because of the I guess the kind of marriage of Infantino and Trump into this kind of ghastliness?
I mean, I do think it will become a bit like that. And I think the World Cup is fundamentally a TV phenomenon for 99 percent of people of the world who enjoy it and kind of always has been.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential consequences of the proposed changes to equality laws?
Empty seats in the stadium, people will notice that. And I actually think with social media, these things are probably more pertinent than they were 10 years ago. Because if there were empty seats at the back of a stadium, you could kind of hide it. In a way, you sort of can't now. Yeah. And if they're a massive, I mean, a big thing, the whole ICE immigration stuff in the US.
And when Latin American teams win the World Cup, the culture is to have massive street parties. You know, they were doing that in Qatar, in Russia or wherever else. But there'll be Colombians, Mexicans. And will that be an opportunity to round up undocumented people? I don't know. It could be.
So the risk is that it's, you know, if you're a Colombian or whatever, Hispanic, you don't want to be seen anywhere near because you are easy target for an ICE officer.
It's extraordinary. This is how we used to talk about China, you know, before the Olympics. Would China be getting rid of all its, you know, its sort of homeless people or its weaker population or would it be rounding people up? It is extraordinary. to kind of fast forward to 2026 and realise that you're talking about America in that same context.
So in the Club World Cup last year, which America hosted as a sort of trial event for, which was sort of beset by problems, but also I don't think a massive failure, I think kind of worked. But, well, sort of logistically, not necessarily, no one in Europe was interested in the football particularly.
But they posted on an official account, you know, we're going to be outside the stadiums checking, you know, basically immigration. And then they had to delete that.
That's what J.D. Vance said. I mean, he literally said in a press conference, you know, we'll send you to Kirstie Nairn, the Homeland Security agency.
So what do you think the legacy will be? Will we go from talking about ice agents, talking about prices, talking about the gouging, the profiteering, all the rest of it, to talking, come Thursday, we'll just be talking about football?
I think it slightly depends on what the football throws up because the Qatar World Cup final happened to be possibly the best football match of all time, which was certainly useful to Qatar. And when the Emir of Qatar put that robe on Messi, which was bizarre, but fundamentally people just wanted to talk about the match.
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