FIFA World Cup: Trade Deals 1, Human Rights Nil | Crooked Media
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December 12, 2024
Pod Save the UK
FIFA World Cup: Trade Deals 1, Human Rights Nil

In This Episode

In the same week FIFA decided an appalling human rights record is no obstacle to Saudi Arabia hosting the 2034 World Cup, Keir Starmer was schmoozing the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. What lengths will our former human rights lawyer PM go to in his pursuit of growth? Joey Shea from Human Rights Watch takes us through what went down during the visit.

 

Back home, the government is talking up its plans to build 1.5 million new homes. Housing journalist Vicky Spratt joins Nish and Coco to assess whether  Labour can pull off  the biggest home building initiative since the second world war.

 

And Pod Save The UK has found the perfect job for the royal family: Trump whisperers. Prince William was hastily wheeled out in Paris to charm the President and Nish and Coco explore why Trump has a weird soft spot for the Windsors.

 

Guests:

Vicky Spratt

Joey Shea

 

Credits:

Sky News

UK Government

 

Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

Contact us via email: PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk

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TRANSCRIPT

 

 

[AD].

 

Nish Kumar Hi, This is Pod Save the UK. I’m Nish Kumar.

 

Coco Khan And I’m Coco Kahn. This week, the government has laid out its plans for change. And the first item on the agenda is the most ambitious housebuilding project since the Second World War. But do the government’s plans add up? We’re speaking to the i’s housing correspondent Vicky Spratt.

 

Nish Kumar And Keir Starmer has jetted off to Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the hopes of securing new trade deals. But does his mission for economic growth risk abandoning human rights? We’ll find out. Joey Shea from Human Rights Watch.

 

Coco Khan Sometimes when we ask questions in the intro, I’m always really reminded of that old adage about like every question you put in a headline, the answer is yes or the answer is no. The answers are yes.

 

Nish Kumar The answers are only yes or no. Well, you suggested we do an episode one week where we do that, and then it just plays the theme music and then we just go, okay, so quickly. Yes and no. Good night.

 

Coco Khan So neither do the government’s plans. I don’t know. Does it risk abandoning human rights? Yes.

 

Nish Kumar It does. Everybody, thank you for tuning in. I think the UK is a reduced listing production for Crooked Media. Okay. So having answered the questions, yes or no, do you want to just crack into that? Should we just be here anyway? Might as well just take a shot at it.

 

Coco Khan So incoming US President Donald Trump has marked his return to the international stage with a visit to Paris, where he attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. And he made a beeline to butter up with Prince William.

 

Nish Kumar So for the benefit of the listeners to the podcast, I’m looking at a picture of William and Trump here, and it’s definitely awkward. It looks like an episode of Celebrity Gogglebox that’s gone very, very badly awry. The pair of them are posing on separate sofas about a meter apart. Trump has a sort of grin on his face that suggests he’s about to deliver some horrible news to someone which I guess just his presence is enough of an indication that something horrible is about to happen. But William also looks deeply uncomfortable. Trousers. So illegally uncomfortable.

 

Coco Khan Did you know I’ve been doing some research into this because I’m sad and, you know, I’m obsessed with the people’s Princess Diana. Prince William’s mother, the People’s Princess Diana. Donald Trump did an interview with Howard Stern saying that, he totally could have shagged her, but if he did, he would have made her take an Aids test. Yeah, that’s what he said about the beloved Princess Diana. And he also remember there was a whole scandal about Kate’s topless photos. No UK press would run those pictures. Yeah, but apparently they were leaking in other countries. And Donald Trump was very excited about this and tweeted something like, oh Kate, you know, it would be so amazing. Come on, Kate. Like basically get your tits out for the lads. And Prince William has to go and sit opposite that man who spoke about his mother and wife that way. I’m surprised he didn’t punch him in the face.

 

Nish Kumar I knew the first half of that story. I did not know the second half of the story. It’s all but one amazing story that somehow all bad in every way. The first one I remember, I remember the Diana comments because also the people’s princess, the queen of hearts was obviously famously very involved in lots of Aids charities. Yes. I would often go and meet with patients on Aids wards and would make physical contact with them because that was you know, that’s still quite a sort of transformative moment in terms of the conversation around Aids, because at the time, people genuinely thought you could get it just by like skin to skin contact. There was a lot of misinformation around it. It’s just another great example of Donald Trump always being on the wrong side of history. Like this is incredible bellwether for permanently being on the wrong side of history. Like it’s he is astonishing how quickly his opinions date poorly. I bet Donald Trump took Drake’s side 100%. He took drugs side visit. He’s consistently on the wrong side of history.

 

Coco Khan Loved Rebekah Vardy. She was correct. Yeah, exactly. But if you’re listening to this and you have a child that says one day I’d like to be a princess, just remind them that actually being a royal involves things like this. Now, details surrounding the diplomatic meeting are hazy, but it seems like the prince was scrambled at very short notice to woo Trump. Trump famously has a soft spot for the royal family. That’s a nice way to put that, isn’t it.

 

Nish Kumar He’s got a perma bono.

 

Coco Khan Like a hot spot for the female members.

 

Nish Kumar His mushroom attraction.

 

Coco Khan Trump later told the New York Post that Prince William looked really very handsome last night. Some people look better in person. He looked great. It’s more Oscar the Grouch what I’m doing? Isn’t it.

 

Nish Kumar I have no idea. I have no clue what just happened, though.

 

Coco Khan He looked really nice.

 

Nish Kumar What the hell is going on? Are you drunk?

 

Coco Khan He looked really nice? I just thought it’d be nice to add  color. Anyway. He looked really very handsome last night, so people look better in person, he looked great. He looked really nice. And I told him that that’s the full quote.

 

Nish Kumar Okay, So obviously, this is the usual B.S. from Trump talking absolute nonsense. I wonder, though, if there is some sort of positive diplomatic angle from a Labour Government’s perspective, because if William has made an impression on Trump, it might help smooth over some of the past criticism by several members of the Labour Party before they were in government. So maybe just putting the royal family front and center in international relations might actually be a useful tool for us in making nice with the US under Trump.

 

Coco Khan I mean, it’s good for them to do something. Yes, I mean, they.

 

Nish Kumar Got to do something for the money that will pay them back. And maybe Trump and William could compare notes on being terrible landlords anyway. Elsewhere in British international relations. The government on the only ones trying to cozy up to the incoming US administration. Last week, Kevin Bacon renewed her friendship with incoming US VP, J.D. Vance. But it wasn’t enough to stop the Conservatives receiving a major snub from New York Republicans in not receiving an invite to the annual. And I can’t believe I’m saying this MAGA gala. Nigel Farage is a headline speaker at the event, but the Tories were left out in the cold being described as a and this is a direct quote, loser party by the events. Organizers.

 

Coco Khan So awful. Also, what is the mega gala? I don’t think you’re going to be booked for that.

 

Nish Kumar One, though. I think it’s unlikely.

 

Coco Khan So you and Kid Rock.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah.

 

Coco Khan Yeah. So it’s not just Republicans that think Tories are losers. Billionaire donors are also defecting. The latest move. Nick Candy is joining reform as their new treasurer. He’s joining the party alongside a pledge to give a seven figure donation. So that’s at least 1 million pounds. Nick Candy, by the way, is Holly Balances husband and he is very rich. I think that’s the most crucial thing to mention.

 

Nish Kumar Yes, This is for people of our age. There’s a kind of very strange feeling that whoever is casting Britain is running out of actors and so is now just bringing strange people back from the past. Oliver Lance is an Australian actor who was on Neighbors. So she came over to the UK and has become an unlikely face of the hard right in the United Kingdom. She claims to have convinced Nigel Farage to run in the 2024 election and hosted 100,000 pound a couple fundraiser in London for Donald Trump. So this is an ex soap star slash pop star. Again, star in both of those tests is doing a lot of the legwork. Who has now become a kind of unlikely face of the MAGA movement in the United Kingdom? There are really serious implications here because an extra million pounds for a former head of the 2025 local elections is definitely something we should be focusing on as a point of reference. Labour’s biggest donor in 2024 was 1 million pounds from Eco Tricity, which is owned by the billionaire green energy magnate Dale Vince.

 

Coco Khan And we should mention that Tory defections are coming thick and fast. The husband of Suella Braverman, Rachel Braverman, has joined reform as a senior campaigner. Braverman herself remains with the Tories. But we’re not getting people on this show. But if we were, you might say she’s not got long left, is she?

 

Nish Kumar Another story that people have been listening to podcast through the last 3 or 4 months will have been across is reform’s complete inability to properly vet any of their candidates. It’s hard to know what you would have to do to get disqualified for.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, exactly.

 

Nish Kumar Apart from, you know, I don’t know, like be nice to an immigrant might be the only thing that’s enough to get you disqualified for from the goddamn Reform Party. But listen, the swell of support for reform in this country, something that concerns us only because they seem to consistently be pulling in open racists. It was a Reform Party activist that was caught as part of a counterforce sting operation using explicitly racist language about Rishi Sunak in the summer. There’s absolutely no pause for reflection about that.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, absolutely. And it’s it’s alarming that there is this wave of support and moneyed wave. Yeah. You know, putting aside their popularity online and actually numbers with the people, the money behind the machine is really alarming.

 

Nish Kumar The big news this week, of course, is coming from Syria where Bashar al-Assad’s regime has been overthrown. This has massive international implications. Indeed, the UK has already poured Syrian asylum claims in the wake of the news and alongside other Western countries, is considering removing Syrian rebels from the UK’s proscribed terrorist list. Things are moving quickly, So to hear what all of this means, head to our sister podcast Pod Save The World. On a special bonus episode, Tommy and Ben discuss this pivotal moment, its implications for serious future and how US policy might adapt.

 

Coco Khan The episode is out now. Tune in to Pod Save The World wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Nish Kumar [AD]

 

Coco Khan Now, last week, Keir Starmer laid out his plans for change, detailing six clear milestones for the government over the life of this Parliament. These milestones provide accountability. It’s a metric for us all to hold the government to account. And in the wake of the declaration, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was wheeled out for the Sunday morning media rounds to sell that first milestone, building 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament.

 

Nish Kumar This target has huge ramifications for the Government’s mission for economic growth. New building projects create new jobs, which injects more money into the economy. However, these targets are ambitious. If the government does pull it off, it’ll be the biggest home building initiative since the Second World War, and the plans for implementation for now seem a bit rocky and hinge on buying from local councils. Here’s Angela Rayner speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips.

 

Clip If they say they cannot deliver this or will not to deliver it, what are you going to do? They have to compulsory have the plan. But what happens to me? Well, they say I’m not going to do it. What are you going to do? Well, ultimately, if they don’t have a local plan, then we will have to look at delivery. But they will have a local plan because they know. Well, that’s what they need to do. Councils are going to say we have to have a local plan. We will deliver a local. They can have as many plans as you like. Okay. But what I’m hearing is that there’ll be councils who will stand in your way.

 

Coco Khan Not exactly a confidence inspiring answer there. So to help us make sense of the government’s ambitious targets, we’re joined by Vicky Spratt, housing correspondent at the i newspaper. Welcome to the UK.

 

Vicky Spratt Vicky Hello. Thanks for having me.

 

Coco Khan So how do you feel watching that that might inspire you with all your housing knowledge?

 

Vicky Spratt I mean, does planning policy inspire anyone? I think that that’s probably the question. Me? A little bit, yeah. She I’m a complete nerd. I mean, the government’s in a really, really difficult position here. They have got to get homes built. I mean, unless you are incredibly rich, you are at the sharp end of the housing crisis right now. You will be experiencing it. Whether that’s because buying a home is more expensive, your rent has gone up or you’re trying to get social housing and you can’t. There is pretty much nobody in this country who’s not impacted by this. But there is a reason that we have a housing crisis, and that is that it’s been very difficult to get the homes we need built in recent years. Now, Labour, I think, are doing all the right things. I think most experts agree. Baa. Is that going to be enough? I don’t know if if it will be.

 

Nish Kumar So let’s just start with this kind of policy around the local councils. Is Angela Rayner saying they have to do it enough to actually make councils act on this here?

 

Vicky Spratt I think in that clip what you’re what you’re seeing is somebody trying to say you have to do this, but I can’t make.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, right, right.

 

Vicky Spratt So she’s saying, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to produce a local plan. But there is actually no way of the government reinforcing that and making them deliver that local plan. Actually, very, very similar tough talk from previous Conservative Housing Secretary Michael Gove this time last year. I’m getting quite bad deja vu. I remember sitting at Riba, which is the Royal Institute of British Architects, and listening to Michael Gove give a similar speech, which was like, If you don’t have a local plan, I will come in and I will make you do my local farm. And I think that’s kind of what Angela Rayner is saying. But that’s a very, very interesting point in that interview with Trevor Phillips, which I think we need to pay attention to, which is and then we will have to look at delivery. If they’re still not able to do it. So what she’s hinting at and I don’t know if this would ever happen, is the government stepping in to deliver houses? So the way it works at the moment is that local authorities are responsible for the delivery. So the government is not going to come in and impose on one particular part of the country, okay, we’re going to build these homes. They have to do it themselves. But she is hinting and saying if we can’t get these homes built, maybe it’s going to change. Maybe that is what’s going to happen. Maybe, maybe the government will just come and put the homes in. But I think that would be particularly for a Labour government. Yes, a real, real, real shitstorm, because the papers would go nuts. They would say it was like Stalinist imposition of state housing or whatever hyperbole they usually come up with when they have a does something quite sensible like, you know, in a building houses. So people aren’t homeless.

 

Nish Kumar Yes. I’m reminded of you going to nationalized sausages.

 

Vicky Spratt Right? Exactly. Is giving that that particular debacle. But but we have been here before. You know, before they were scrapped under Liz Truss. Lest we forget, we actually had compulsory housebuilding targets and we never met them.

 

Coco Khan So why didn’t we ever meet them? I know there’s something of a skills shortage within the sector. What are the other hurdles?

 

Vicky Spratt There are lots of reasons why we are not building homes and why we don’t have enough. And I should say truly affordable houses. You may have noticed that we’re saying in West London, if you walk around certain parts of this bit of the capital, there are lots of empty houses. But they are multi-million pound billion pound mansions that nobody can afford. We need affordable homes that people can actually get into. We’ve got over a million households on social housing waiting lists. I would say that’s the most urgent part of the housing crisis that needs addressed. We also have a problem with planning, which is why local authorities are being told they’ve got to deliver and why all of these local plans are being demanded. Why something called the NPF, that’s the national planning policy framework, is being overhauled to make sure that these targets are in place. That’s because you really, really have to convince local people to allow for developments to be put in in their areas. And we have had really low planning approvals. People don’t want homes in places where we urgently need them. Like the home counties, I was actually having a conversation with someone about this last week saying they want to build houses near me and that’s just not the infrastructure and say I could build a road. I don’t think they’re going to sort out, don’t worry about it. But that’s really just because people are worried about the value of their homes or they feel nervous about that area becoming more built up. That’s going to be another really big challenge. You mentioned the skills shortage, just that we’ve got two big things happening in construction. One is that since Brexit, lots and lots of construction workers have left.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah.

 

Vicky Spratt And the other is that because for a long time people from other countries are working in our construction industry. We’ve not trained up future generations to work in construction and it’s an incredibly skilled job, is often not spoken about as a skilled job, but it really, really is. If you want good quality housing and lots of our most skilled construction workers are retiring and that is just not the workforce to take over from them.

 

Nish Kumar That’s such a difficult and sticky problem because how do you fill a skills gap quickly, especially when you’ve done something that potentially might put people from other countries who have those skills off from coming here and working on Thursday. So as we record, Angela Rayner is expected to introduce plans to allow for building on greenbelt land that the Times describes as being bigger than Surrey, which is a very funny way of measuring it. Like I’ve got to start using that sound which is bigger than Surrey. The plan is expected to create a broader definition of low quality greenbelt land that could be built upon. So earlier this week, headlines sort of fell out first saying that we’d need to prioritize people over needs, which is interesting way of phrase again. People do have legitimate concerns about conservation and the environment. Right, Vicky? So how do you balance legitimate concerns about conservation of the environment with building on bits of the country that have the space for new houses to be built on?

 

Vicky Spratt There’s so much to unpack here. First, say the Times definitely know their audience. If you say something’s bigger than sorry, you’re going to sell newspapers. If you’re two times readers, sorry is the world, Vicky. So there is only Surrey. Yeah. The South London political context.

 

Nish Kumar Surrey is a county. Yes, that. Is refuses to claim. My hometown of Croydon of bigoted Croydon is technically in Surrey, but people in Surrey do not want Croydon to be associated with the rest of Surrey.

 

Vicky Spratt Croydon, also my hometown. I’m quite happy for us not to be in Surrey. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we don’t have time to get into that. We’ve got to talk about news.

 

Nish Kumar Let’s talk about this rather than Croydon.

 

Vicky Spratt The news. Right. This isn’t about news. I thought that was a really, really good soundbite from Angela Rayner and actually was. It was an interesting example of Labour sort of playing the Tories at their own Culture Wars game by saying, Well, we’re not going to protect the news, we’re going to make sure people have homes. But news aren’t the reason why we have a housing crisis. Macroeconomics, mortgage lending. I could go on planning. That’s why we have a housing crisis. I think it’s completely possible to build homes and make sure that we’re not ruining the countryside or the ecosystem. I think that we have regulations in place that look after both of those things. I don’t think that’s what this is really about. And I think the greenbelt is also a bit of a red herring. I’m not saying we should concrete over all of our beautiful green, green and pleasant land. I don’t I don’t think anybody is saying that. The truth about the greenbelt is that a lot of it is brownfield. There is a lot of what’s called low value land in the greenbelt that we could quite easily build on and still have lots of beautiful countryside. This isn’t about concreting over not national parks. I don’t think that’s something that’s on the table. And I think for Labour to come in and redefine those low value bits of the greenbelt as what’s going to be known as gray belt is actually very smart. And it’s also worth noting, guys, that like, none of these announcements are new. So for papers like The Times to now be very, very worried about what’s going to happen to the Green, but it’s a little bit disingenuous because they have been upfront about this and they consulted lots of experts. And there were also Conservative MP previously who said that the greenbelt maybe needed to be reassessed. I mean, it was brought in in the 1900s. The world has changed. We’ve got lots and lots of golf courses that aren’t being used that much. Do we need all of them? I think these are legitimate questions to be asking when we’ve got and this is such an important point, you know, more children living in homelessness, in temporary accommodation than we’ve had since records began. It’s like, do we want to talk about news and golf courses or do we want to make sure we’ve got kids who aren’t growing up homeless?

 

Coco Khan Just thinking about these 1.5 million homes, what is the relationship in terms of funding from the government and private housebuilders who presumably will make a profit out of this and should be excited that it’s going to be easy for them to build? No. Yeah.

 

Vicky Spratt Build. Just want to build. Yeah. And and that that is a good thing. We need them to build. We don’t we don’t really have mass state housebuilding in this country like we did in the postwar years when we built lots and lots and lots of new homes. So whatever your politics are on this, whatever you think, the fact that builders want to build is good, that’s how we’re going to get the homes built. But the question about funding for social housing, I think is the key one. In Rachel Reeves first budget, they announced an additional 500 million for something called the Affordable Homes Program, which was set up under the previous Conservative government. Now, that’s some money, but it’s not enough to build all of the social homes. We need to get rid of the waiting list of over a million households. So what we’re looking at with this 1.5 million target is a combination of private building for private sale and hopefully housing association and council building for social housing. But that crucially could also include schemes like shared ownership, which obviously aren’t true social housing in the purest sense. They are also effectively private sale homes. And really, I would say getting social housing built for the people who need it most, reducing that family homelessness and also single person homelessness is vital. So I hope social housing delivery is prioritized out of that 1.5 million. But we also do need the homes for private sale. Like I live in a one bedroom flat, which I own. I used to help to buy scheme to buy it in 2017. That was amazing for me. But actually, I mean, I don’t have kids, but let’s say hypothetically, I had just had a baby. I don’t know how I would afford to buy someone with with two bedrooms. So I wasn’t in the same room as my kid because that’s the problem we’ve got in the housing market now is people who need to upsize. Everything’s so expensive. It’s actually very difficult for families to grow, to move on. And that’s something this government’s going to have to address. Again, depending on where you sit on having children and and whether people should even be doing that. The fact remains our birthrate is falling. People are having children later, and when they do, they’re having fewer. This has to be a huge part of the reason why we need social housing, but we also need affordable, decent homes for those people who want to have families to start having families and.

 

Nish Kumar And how do you achieve that? Should we be looking at things like rent control? Should we be looking at maybe more punitive taxation for the ownership of second homes? I know this is the kind of thing that would probably send the people who measured things in terms of how it compares to Surrey into a sort of like frothing panic about oncoming Marxist dictatorships, but like stepping away from like the political realities of getting something like that across. Isn’t that something that would practically be incredibly helpful?

 

Vicky Spratt Yeah. The short answer is we have to do something about the cost of housing. You wouldn’t think my B could get people as upset as it does. But if I talk about rent control, the amount of, like, hate emails I get. Yeah, it’s wild. But so. So let’s take home ownership and then we can get on to the really.

 

Nish Kumar Bad landlords who got a lot of time on their hands because they don’t have real jobs. So they’ve got a lot of time to send you emails. Well.

 

Vicky Spratt They do email me a lot. I would say I’m pro seeing being a landlord as a real job. If you are a landlord, you are a housing provider. So I like to think that landlords are taking their job very, very seriously.

 

Coco Khan I like to think is the crucial phrase used there.

 

Vicky Spratt And I would prefer that we called them housing providers and regulated them accordingly. But that’s by the by. So being able to afford to buy a house, this is the one thing I think Labour are missing. By the way, I think their housing strategy, housing policy is very comprehensive. I think it’s important to point out it’s not a million miles away from where the previous Conservative government wanted to be. Under Michael Gove, before he backed down, before it was watered down. They’re doing all the right things. They’re looking at planning, they’re looking at social housing. They’re also looking at how how we build infrastructure. They’re looking at how we reclassify the greenbelt. It’s a real 360 strategy. But the question of who will be able to afford the new homes for private sale hasn’t really been answered. I mentioned the I used help to buy very, very controversial scheme. I benefited from it immensely. But reports have shown that it actually inflated house prices. So not all good. Not all bad. You pull one lever in this part of the economy and something else does happen. That’s the nature of the housing market. But I think to get credit to first home buyers who don’t have really, really rich parents, something like Help to Buy probably has to exist. Labour have said they’re looking at what they’re going to do every time I ask them. They say they’re looking at it, but they haven’t announced anything beyond extending the existing mortgage guarantee scheme, which has been in place for a very long time. But actually, the take up of that is pretty low. And it’s basically just the government saying to banks it will back these mortgages for first time buyers, but it’s not like help to buy, which basically gave you a government loan and a mortgage and made buying a flat like mine affordable. No way I would have been able to buy it without that. So I’m interested to see if we get like a help to buy reboot or something new. But the reason they won’t do that quickly or in a sort of slapdash way, I think is if you pulled a lever that made it easier to buy homes before we had enough homes, which is what helped by round one did. You might inflate house prices because there’s a shortage of supply. So Rachel Reeves and everybody at the Treasury will know this. Everybody at the Ministry of Housing, Angela Rayner, will know this. I think they’re being very careful about what they announce and when, because the nightmare scenario would be for house prices to go up really quickly from where we are now, which by the way is like a near historic high for house prices. So that would be a disaster. And then that brings me to rent control. Just like steal your house. I’m agnostic about rent control. I work for a politically neutral paper. I’ve got no skin in this game. I’m not a landlord. I’m not a private renter. But what I know is private rents are still rising faster than consumer inflation. So renters rents are going up higher and faster than most other consumer goods. That’s a really, really big problem because they’re also rising faster than wages. I hear from renters all the time who are prioritizing paying rent over other stuff, clothes for their kids, food for themselves. Holidays. I know that sounds like, you know, luxury at this point in time, but like, people need breaks.

 

Nish Kumar Even if you take the basic human morality out of this conversation and look at it purely in terms of economics, we’re a service economy. Especially people in their 20s. We kind of need people in their 20s to be able to go out and do things for money into the economy.

 

Vicky Spratt Yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head, which is like it means renters don’t have enough money to spend on other stuff. And that at a time when we’re trying to grow our economy is a big problem. It’s also going to be a problem further down the line, by the way. I feel like I’m I’m sort of like this harbinger of doom. I’m like, by the way, renters aren’t going to have enough money to afford to. Have children. We need people to have children. Based on our current economic model of people contributing national insurance to fund the welfare state, to fund the NHS, to fund adult social care. If our generation doesn’t have children, there’ll be no workers in the future paying into the system when we’re old. It’s a big problem that people on saving and it’s having an impact on the economy. But what I would say is the renters rights bill, which I’m hearing should become law next summer, does have measures in it so that rents can’t keep going up. Once you’re in a tenancy and there will be an independent tribunal that you can go to if your rent is going up like that and you can challenge it. Some people are very upset about this. People on the right and they’re calling it soft rent control. I mean, I think it’s rent regulation, but arguably necessary regulation because as we’ve just sort of outlined, what happens if you don’t do something about people’s rents going up and if your rent goes up and you get evicted or you have to move, that’s very disruptive. You can’t find anywhere else. You can afford to live in the area. You either move really far away. If you take your kids out of school, maybe you have to change job. Maybe your commute doubles. Or worst case scenario, you become homeless. And that’s why we’re seeing that number of families with children living in temporary accommodation, which, by the way, is really expensive for the taxpayer. That’s not why it’s so terrible. It’s terrible cause it’s poor quality and it’s a horrible place to be, but it’s not good value for money for the taxpayer. So actually limiting in tenancy rent increases in the rent is rights Bill is the right thing to do because it will bring stability to renters, which is also in the end good for the temporary accommodation bill. Good for homelessness numbers and better value for money for the taxpayer.

 

Coco Khan The picture you painted when you talk about children in this horrific temple accommodation and just. The number of people in desperate need of secure housing going up and up and up is 1.5 million. Even the right number? Maybe it needs to be higher.

 

Vicky Spratt Maybe it does need to be higher. Potentially, yeah. What I would say to that is we can only build the number of homes that we can build. So I think 1.5 billion is a really good place to start. And if it were higher and we couldn’t build them, then everybody would just say that Labour had failed. And you know, something’s better than nothing.

 

Nish Kumar Vicky, thank you so much for joining us today. It is really reassuring to hear ultimately what we have on our hands here, potentially some actual sensible, useful legislation where several of the sort of wider ramifications have been thought out. It’s nice to have a bit of positivity on the show.

 

Vicky Spratt I think it’s good. You’re welcome.

 

Nish Kumar Thank you very much. You can come back as often as you want.

 

Vicky Spratt I’d love to.

 

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Nish Kumar This week, Keir Starmer jetted off to suggest stronger trade ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Britain already has a 57 billion pound trade deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC. And Starmer is hoping to negotiate a free trade agreement that will raise that figure by 16%. Here Starmer explaining the reason behind the trip.

 

Clip Last week, I set out my plan for change, and at the heart of that is economic growth in the UK. And what I mean by that is growth that makes people across the United Kingdom feel better off. Living standards going up right across the United Kingdom. For that to happen. We have to win contracts. We have to win investment from around the world, but particularly from the Gulf in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We already have strong partnerships, strong investment. I’m here to take that to another level.

 

Coco Khan Now, focusing on Saudi Arabia, wooing this country is pretty controversial due to its poor human rights record and a devastating war with Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of people. The Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman has also been accused of ordering the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. And the death penalty has been used widely to crack down on dissent. With more than 280 people executed this year alone.

 

Nish Kumar So just how far will Starmer go for a trade deal as the human rights lawyer abandoned human rights? Here to unpack this is Joey Shea from Human Rights Watch. She’s a researcher investigating human rights abuses in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Hi, Joey. Welcome to Pod Save the UK. It’s one of the more depressing job titles that we’ve had to announce someone onto the show with.

 

Joey Shea I guess. Fair enough. But thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

 

Nish Kumar So stories seeking investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund known as the Public Investment Fund, or Piff, and their trillion dollar Saudi state investment vehicle. Now, Jerry, Human Rights Watch has uncovered some pretty shocking findings when it comes to the fund. What are the key things that you’ve uncovered?

 

Joey Shea Yeah. So just a few weeks ago, we released a report that’s nearly 100 pages called The Man Who Bought the World Extra Points. If you can tell what that title is based off of which song. But in our report, we found that the Piff has facilitated human rights abuses and has benefited from human rights abuses. Our documentation goes all the way back to 2017 during the notorious corruption crackdown at the Ritz-Carlton. And we found that assets that were seized outside of any recognizable legal process in 2017, while some of their owners were being detained and tortured and the Ritz wound up in the public investment fund. We also raised questions about this nearly trillion dollar fund that’s comprised of Saudi public wealth, state wealth that is unilaterally controlled by Mohammed bin Salman, a 39 year old mercurial millennial who’s been credibly accused of ordering the murder of a journalist. What does it mean for this one person to have singular control over all of the state wealth of the country?

 

Nish Kumar So there are links between Jamal Khashoggi’s death and companies controlled and owned by the fund. But how can that be the case? How can that be the case?

 

Joey Shea Yeah. So going back to 2017, we found that some companies that were seized illegally wound up into the pay off. One of these companies was a company called Sky Prime Aviation. And that company owned the two planes, which transferred the hit squad to Istanbul, where they then murdered Jamal Khashoggi. So the PLF has been used very directly. And the most egregious example of Mohammed bin Salman’s transnational repression.

 

Nish Kumar It’s just been uncovered. Bin Salman personally lobbied David Cameron earlier this year to intervene in the case of a Saudi asylum seeker in the UK who was suing the Saudi government. And Saudi officials warned that this issue could have implications for 100 billion pounds of investment in the UK. Is there a risk Saudi Arabia’s able to sort of weaponize its wealth effectively to kind of mute criticism not just internally but also here as well, like on UK soil?

 

Joey Shea Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the the main findings of our report as well, that the Piff is being used as a tool of whitewashing Mohammed bin Salman’s human rights record abroad. If we look at investments both in the UK, also in the US, something like Liv Gulf and it’s the agreement that it’s seeking with the PGA Tour and how these investments and massive sporting events are really a tool to deflect from the country’s rights record and to further Mohammed bin Salman’s political aims and his personal interests abroad.

 

Coco Khan So that’s in a nutshell, that’s what his aims for this fund are, because one always ask a question with any of these mercurial characters, as you so articulately put it. You know, Elon Musk, I think of him as well. You know what? What is your end game here? What is this about? And is that the case to utilize this fund to essentially shore up his own wealth, shore up his own influence and spread it as far and wide as possible?

 

Joey Shea Yeah, absolutely. You’ve hit the nail right on the head. I do think it’s also important to note that, you know, it’s $1 trillion that has investments and across sectors across the world. You know, some of these investments do make economic sense. You know, important to note that Mohammed bin Salman himself says that this fund is being used to diversify the country’s economy away from oil. In some respects, that’s true. But it is also being used to pursue ambitious personal interests, deflect from human rights abuses, and it’s directly linked with human rights abuses themselves.

 

Nish Kumar With Keir Starmer, obviously much softer made in kind of his campaigning material about his background as a human rights lawyer. He’s now prime minister. Downing Street has said that he’s going to be able to raise concerns about the Saudi government, its human rights record. But how does that practically manifest itself if you’re going there with the explicit purpose of improving trade relations and securing specific trade investments? When does that come up? I mean, we had Steve, obviously, as a journalist on the show a couple of weeks ago said essentially it boils down to just at the very end of the meeting going, could you just not do that? Okay. Is that I mean, when Downing Street says this is what does it practically look like in the room?

 

Joey Shea I mean, that’s a very good question. So I read the readout of Starmer’s visit with Mohammed bin Salman himself, and I want to read this out exactly because the wording is is very, very precise. The quote is reflecting on Saudi Arabia’s reform agenda. The leaders discussed the steps taken by the Crown prince’s government to improve human rights under Saudi’s Vision 2030. So that puts it in the path to the steps that Mohammed bin Salman has taken under Vision 2030. As Human Rights Watch, it’s our position that under Mohammed bin Salman, since the onset of Vision 2030, it’s been the worst human rights record in Saudi Arabia’s modern history. And in this, there’s no single human rights defender whose name to your Starmer, you know, admitted that they called for the immediate release. There’s no details. And so my suspicion is that this was sort of yeah, as you said, noted as the take away. Right at the end of the meeting, there was no specifics given, no specific demands to reduce the use of the penalty or death penalty to release specific human rights defenders. It was just, you know, used in very general terms.

 

Coco Khan But it would be impossible first to ask for that when he’s also going cap in hand. Right. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have an enormous amount of power. I guess I suppose I’m just reflecting on as I mentioned there, we had Steven Bush from the FTA and he was talking about it’s one of the sort of farces of diplomacy is this little routine that so many leaders will do. You know, you’re a specialist in human rights abuses. Is it farcical to have these conversations? Is there actually any conversation that can be had with figures like NBS and it be meaningful if you need a trade deal from them?

 

Joey Shea I don’t think that economic ties and respect and centralizing human rights in your foreign policy are mutually exclusive. You know, of course there’s always a sort of horse trading going on. But I think you can have a conversation with Mohammed bin Salman where you’re seeking to boost investment. You can say that, you know, if this trade is going to be boosted, then X, Y, Z, human rights conditions need to be met, right. And that’s what we as Human Rights Watch are pushing for and are asking for that this trade is not just given away willy nilly, but is attached to very specific human rights conditionalities.

 

Nish Kumar And how how how is he how is it possible that he can guarantee the will? Is there there doesn’t seem to be any scrutiny or oversight. I mean, one of the ways you would hypothetically imagine that would be scrutiny or oversight is through journalism. But if there are credible allegations that NBS was personally involved in the order to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi, how do you how can you even how can you guarantee that any of this is correct or any of this actually will happen?

 

Joey Shea Yeah. I mean, I think very practically when it comes to the UK and the G C, there are these ongoing trade negotiations for free trade agreements. I think it will be important as these negotiations go on for there to be these very specific human rights conditionalities. So there is actually a framework where these policies can be very specifically spelled out.

 

Nish Kumar You’re saying there is actually a framework that potentially a trade deal that actually has genuine, meaningful ethical implications could exist.

 

Joey Shea It could exist. We don’t know right now if it does. And I think that’s one of the main issues around these negotiations, is they fundamentally lack transparency. And, you know, this is one of the bedrocks of a democratic society is, you know, we need to have details on agreement so it can be debated within the public sphere and there can be feedback and politicians can respond accordingly.

 

Nish Kumar Starmer’s in a difficult position, not just because of his own background, but also because these are negotiations that was started by the previous government. And when Boris Johnson met Ambassador 2022, Starmer accused him of going cap in hand from dictator to dictator. This is Keir Starmer’s put himself in a slightly difficult position here, right?

 

Joey Shea Yeah, absolutely. But this is sort of the story of Saudi Arabia where, you know, we saw this in the US as well. President Biden promised to turn Mohammed bin Salman into a pariah. And then months later, you know, the fist bump that was heard around the world happened. And unfortunately, when it comes to Gulf states, given their overwhelming economic power, human rights. Often takes or most of the time takes a backseat to that. And, you know, the implications have been grave. We’ve seen, you know, the quantity and quality of rights abuses just dramatically increase over the last few years.

 

Nish Kumar Let’s talk about football, because the PIF quite famously owns Newcastle United Football Club. Yeah. At the time that that purchase went through, there was a lot of talk from the PIF that it was completely separate to the Saudi royal family, that it has no influence, which is I think everybody at the time suspected to be of. I don’t think this is a technical human rights but total horseshit or at least partial horseshit. That that’s that’s sort of the case, right? The case was made that this purchase was completely legit because the PIF isn’t directly affiliated to the Saudi royal family.

 

Joey Shea Yeah, exactly. And in the report that I mentioned previously, we found that that is absolutely not the case, that not only is the PIF one of the most important engines of the Saudi state, but it also is directly controlled by the crown prince himself. And just to give you a bit of background in terms of the governance structure, so Mohammed bin Salman is the chair of the board of directors. He’s also the head of the committee that oversees the board of directors. He’s also the prime minister, which allows him to unilaterally appoint every single member of the board of directors. So just in terms of the governance structure, you only really need one photo, and that’s of Mohammed bin Salman’s face at every level of governance. And also, you know, because the press will come out and say we’re a regular investment firm that, you know, has safeguards internally. But in our report, we also documented Mohammed bin Salman going around these safeguards that effectively just exist on paper. And some reporting that came out in the Telegraph that demonstrated the extent to which Mohammed bin Salman himself was intimately involved in the negotiations around the Newcastle United deal.

 

Nish Kumar So pretty connected. So, so earliest this kind of there’s this sort of three phase thing with this use of football as sports watching effectively. So there’s the purpose of Newcastle Jets, the formation of the Saudi Pro League, which has attracted people like Cristiano Ronaldo as player, Steven Gerrard as a manager, you know, it’s very high profile. They circling bigger acquisitions, including players like Mo Salah and Alisson from Liverpool. So that’s the second phase of it. And the third phase is something that’s happening pretty much as we’re recording on Wednesday. For for deciding on Saudi Arabia. But it feels like a like absolute joke to use phrases like they’re deciding on Saudi Arabia’s bid because most likely this bid is going to be approved for Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 men’s football World Cup. This is despite accusations of widespread Labour violations against migrant workers. Also reports this week about FIFA failing to act on reports of widespread Labour violations and human rights violations of workers at the Qatar World Cup. That was held in 2022. This is this is hugely controversial, Jerry. Even in the context of the Russia and Qatar men’s World Cups, how have we ended up in this situation now?

 

Joey Shea That’s a very good question. In 2016, FIFA first drafted its human rights policy, which came into effect in 2017. And, you know, we had hope that given the immense amount of criticism that surrounded the Qatar World Cup and the Labour violations that were tied in the many, many years in the lead up to that World Cup, that FIFA, you know, would have learned from its mistakes and, you know, made sure that the one of the most important sporting events in the world that so many people, millions of people around the world have such a deep emotional connection to, would not be tied to the deaths of workers from places like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, that that would not happen again. Unfortunately, today, you know, the writing’s on the wall. Saudi Arabia will be awarded 2034. And we have, you know, very serious concerns that this will lead to another catastrophic human rights crisis. And I do think that the Labour situation in Saudi Arabia is far worse right now than it was in Qatar, unfortunately.

 

Nish Kumar I mean, the openness of the corruption is sort of staggering to me. Right. They’ve engineered the situation by which. Saudi Arabia Hosting the World Cup is an inevitability because of the total absence of rival bids. Are there any safeguards at all in place that attach to FIFA rewarding a World Cup to a country?

 

Joey Shea Absolutely none. Over the summer, Saudi Arabia published its bid book, which we, of course, immediately dove into, along with many other human rights organizations and in its human rights impact assessments. We were just totally shocked with the complete lack of engagement on an actual substantive human rights issues. It failed to take, you know, basic human rights instruments like the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights, into consideration and its assessments. It did not speak to a single migrant worker. It did not speak to a single independent Saudi activist. Alquist, which is the foremost Saudi led human rights organization that’s actually based in London, filled with the most brilliant Saudi human rights activists you will ever meet. They were not consulted on this. And FIFA has a responsibility to do that basic consultation, and they did not do that.

 

Coco Khan 2034 nearly a decade away. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. The World Cup has been a part of my life my entire life. It’s increasingly becoming harder to enjoy thanks to all this horrible corruption and, you know, enjoying football, the knowing that people have died in order to service this spectacle for me. What can we do as just average British citizens who don’t like this and want to preserve something that we really care about in a way that is ethical and sustainable? What can be done?

 

Joey Shea Yeah, I think this is a really important question. So we are ten years out. There is a lot of time. And you know, even though I think in regard to Saudi, FIFA has not acted in good faith, to say the least. I think, you know, we have to have hope that we can improve the human rights situation on the ground. And I do think international sport is a really important venue to do that. So in terms of, you know, regular fans, regular people, I think being engaged, knowing what the issues are, understanding the violations facing migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. And, you know, when you’re engaging through your local clubs, through the Premier League, making sure that these issues, you know, are vocalized and spoken about, I think that’s that’s really, really important because FIFA, you know, if there’s no fans to fill the stadiums, then that’s going to hurt their bottom line.

 

Nish Kumar Jerry, thank you so much for joining us and Save the UK. Really appreciate it.

 

Joey Shea Thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

 

Nish Kumar And that’s it. Thanks so much for listening to Pod Save the UK.

 

Coco Khan Don’t forget to follow Pod Save the UK on Instagram TikTok and Twitter. And if you want more of us, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel.

 

Nish Kumar Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

 

Coco Khan Thanks to senior producer James Tindale and assistant producer Mae Robson.

 

Nish Kumar Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

 

Coco Khan Thanks to our engineers Ryan Macbeth and Geet Vasari, the head of production is Dan Jackson.

 

Nish Kumar The executive producers are Anushka Sharma, Louise Cotton and Madeleine Herringer with additional support from Ari Schwartz.

 

Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

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