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Are knives being sharpened by disgruntled MPs planning a coup against the PM? As Keir Starmer’s team dig in against a supposed threat to the Prime Minister from Health Secretary Wes Streeting – has the Tory-brand of Westminster psychodrama come back for a new series?

Meanwhile the BBC is under fire from the left, the right, the centre and the US president. Nish and Coco dig into an existential crisis for the public broadcaster.

And as COP30 kicks off in Brazil – can we rescue the 1.5C climate target? Alex Reid from Global Witness drops in to give us a reality check.

Later – as Robert Jenrick begins posting AI generated slop to attack his political rivals –  Coco speaks to the AI and Online Safety Minister Kanishka Narayan.

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AUDIO CREDITS 

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GUESTS

Alex Reid, Head of Forests team at Global Witness

Kanishka Narayan MP, AI and Online Safety Minister

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TRANSCRIPT

Coco Khan Hi, this is Pod Save the UK, I’m Coco Kahn.

Nish Kumar And I’m Nish Kumar. This week, the BBC is under fire from left, right, center, and the US president. We’ll dig into just how perilous the situation is for the corporation.

Coco Khan And as one of our least favorite Tories begins posting AI-generated slop to attack his political opponents, I speak to the AI and online safety minister, Kanishka Narayan.

Nish Kumar And as cop dirty kicks off in Brazil, we ask, can we still rescue the one and a half degree climate target? We speak to Alex Reid from Global Witness.

Coco Khan But first, this is my crystal ball of music.

Nish Kumar Crystal Ball music.

Coco Khan Yeah, you have to imagine I’m gazing into a crystal ball and then…

Nish Kumar Yes, but I’m trying to imagine why because I know what you’re going to talk about. Okay. So that’s my confusion. My confusion is everything.

Coco Khan Okay. Okay. What we’re going to discuss is a Westminster bubble story. Yeah. So we’re going to gaze into the Westminster bubble, which is a crystal ball. Yeah, yeah. Does that work?

Nish Kumar I think at this point, me and the listeners are used to your circuitous logic.

Coco Khan Do you remember, did you ever used to watch shows like Saved by the Bell?

Nish Kumar Of course I watch Saved by the Bell, I’m 40 years old.

Coco Khan Well, you know, they’d have this thing where they’d have a memory and then it would all go pink around the edges.

Nish Kumar Yeah, yeah, and it would slightly blur, yeah.

Coco Khan That’s the vibe I want you to have. Just imagine sepia tones. It’s all wavy around the edges. Something is happening.

Nish Kumar AC Slater.

Coco Khan Something is happening in our imagination and that is the Labour Party is in a meltdown. The MPs are in a corner, they’re sharpening their knives, they are whispering in hushed tones and number ten, they’ve gone into full bunker mode.

Nish Kumar Okay, FBM.

Coco Khan FBF.

Nish Kumar As we record on Wednesday morning, all of the papers are leading on the rumor that Keir Starmer’s Prime Ministership is at genuine risk. Why? Well, it seems that a number ten source sent out a range of briefings to the British press on Tuesday evening warning that the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, was on maneuvers to pressure Starmer out with as many as 50 front benches ready to resign if the incoming budget is poorly received.

Coco Khan So the question is why now we don’t need to tell you that Stama is deeply, unbelievably, historically unpopular. So you remember I was saying about how this fantasy of the Labour MPs with their knives out. Yeah. Depending on where you stand, for some people that…

Nish Kumar Do I remember something that happened two minutes ago? Give me some credit. Give me SOME credit, Coco.

Coco Khan Okay, I just mean, depending on how you feel about Kissed Armor, that could be a dream come true.

Nish Kumar How bad do you think my ADHD is? I’ve not got the disease that the guy from Memento has, I don’t need to take a Polaroid to say Coco Karn has just brought up the MPs shifing their knives, and then ought have it tattooed across my torso.

Coco Khan Well, anyway, just for clarity, it’s something that I said moments ago. I just mean, depending on how you feel about Starmer and what’s going on, you know, it could be a complete nightmare or it could a dream come true. He’s very, very unpopular. Despite his promises to make tough decisions. You know, the MPs have lost faith. I think the country’s kind of lost faith and people are wondering, has he actually got the ability to deliver on what he said he was going to do? You know there’s a lot of Conversation about the incoming backflip on their manifesto pledge of not raising taxes. Look, you know, it’s…

Nish Kumar Know, it’s a big deal. And also, there’s another crucial thing happening when they’re trying to make the political calculation of whether to get rid of Stama, and that is next May’s local elections, which is looking like being an absolute bloodbath for the Labour Party, at least according to the current polling. Now look, sometimes local elections are seen as a kind of bellwether for a government, and opinion givers of the world have a tendency to view local elections being like a litmus test. And it’s more about what it implies on a national stage, but it actually has real day-to-day consequences for political parties. If the party loses control of Wales and a lot of councils across the country, those councils actually serve as the grassroots for the broader Labour Party. So it’s really, really severe. It’s not just a symbolic bloody nose for summer, it could be an actual operational difficulty for the party on a day to day basis. And I think that’s part of the thing that is driving some of these MPs into the kind of mode of, you know, essentially regicide.

Coco Khan Yes, absolutely. So the question is, what does West Streeting have to say about this? Well, here he is speaking to Amal Rajan on BBC’s Radio 4 Today program.

Clip That briefing is categorically untrue. I think it’s extremely unhelpful, not least because it basically says from a number 10 source the prime minister’s fighting for his own job. No, he’s not. He’s fighting to turn around the country.

Nish Kumar His interview with the Today program is actually a lot more, I would say, sober in some ways than his interview with Sky News where he, when he was asked if he was planning a leadership challenge he said, whoever’s been briefing this has been watching too much celebrity traitors and this is just about the worst attack on a faithful I’ve seen since Joe Bala was kicked out and banished in the final. So it doesn’t suggest that he’s taking this hugely seriously. I don’t know in this analogy who the Alan Carr is. I don’t fully know who the Claudia Winkleman is, but I’m very confused. When he was asked if he would rule out challenging Stammer after the budget or demanding his resignation, he said, yes, and nor did I shoot JFK. I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar. And I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings. I don think they were fake. So I think West Street is trying to sort of You know pour as much cold water on these rumors as he can possibly muster

Coco Khan It must be quite good for him though, being across all of the press, being spoken about as leader and coming up with these funny little refrains. I mean, I’m just, I am not convinced that this is just a rumor that West Street has no designs on it. You could probably gather that from my exclamation. I think there is no smoke without fire.

Nish Kumar We spent the first year and a half of this podcast essentially talking about governmental psychodrama and internal fighting. When there was a change of government last year, people said to me, oh, are you worried you’re not going to have anything to talk about now? And I kept saying no, because I actually don’t fucking care about this stuff. It’s just not of interest to me. The thing that I’m interested in is talking about politics. And when I say politics, I don’t mean… Who runs what party and who’s briefing against who. I mean, policy that actually has the ability to improve the lives of people living in this country. That is what ultimately I’m interested in. That is ultimately what I think we all need to be interested in, and I think I was honestly, maybe naively, hoping that we would be done with this fucking shit. I was really hoping that we would done with talking about briefings, and who’s briefing against who, and whose camp is briefing against whom, and listening to politicians’ poo poo talk of a civil war by making, you know, at best, tenuous references to current pop culture trends. Part of the reason I think I was hoping we’d moved away from that is, Starmer… Promise to the country was not particularly specific on policy, but what it was specific on was a promise of reasonable sober leadership and an end to the chaos of the Conservative Party. That was the whole promise. We are bringing an end the chaos that the Conservative Party has wrought on the country by continuous infighting. And so this is a bad goddamn look. I feel very frustrated. I feel very frustrated.

Coco Khan I agree with absolutely everything you’ve said and I would also just say, just reflecting on our own role as people who discuss politics, I’ve always been very frustrated when Westminster bubble stories dominate the conversations around politics and not actually the lived experience of British citizens whose standards are in decline and what politicians are not doing to change that. However, for this particular one, I think the question of Keir Starmer potentially not being leader is actually quite important and potentially an opportunity. People are saying that the Labour Party is dead, but there’s no denying that there’s been very good people in the Labour party and the Labour movement as a whole, I would say, has been positive for Britain. It would be a shame for it to kind of just die in this limp way. Could a new leader revitalize this. Now we can have a question about whether we really need a Labour Party perhaps a more broad left coalition of various different things is actually more appropriate. Okay, that’s fine. That’s a separate question for now. But just in terms of the Labour Party, which I think we would agree would be good if it existed and was effective and lived up to the Labour party. Movement and what it claims to be on its card, then I think there’s an opportunity to save it here. Anyone that would take over from Stammer would have to be more to the left, would have to be. It couldn’t be more, to the right really, like it wouldn’t, they’d need to distinguish themselves. They would see also what’s happening with Zack Polanski. This could be an opportunity, this could be a moment.

Nish Kumar But it’s of no use if they’re not coming to it with an actual policy platform. Like, there is no point in replacing a kind of walking set of valueless platitudes in a suit with another walking set a valuelous platitudes. Right, of course, but the April said we didn’t do that. What I would say is if you’re planning on replacing Starmer, you need to tell us what you are replacing Starmer with, not who. I don’t care who it is at this point, right? I’m not interested in the name, I’m interested in substance. So if there are people maneuvering against Starmer, then eventually what we will need to hear is why from a policy perspective. And not just because he’s unpopular, right, not just becasue he’s polling badly personally, and not just bc we’re interested in winning the next election. There is still a lot of time between now and the next general election. So if somebody is planning on replacing Keir Starmer, we need to know what they would do differently. And I don’t just mean in terms of internally in the Labour Party, I mean what they would do differently for the country.

Coco Khan Yeah, I think that’s fair. I would also be open to Keir Starmer returning to the politician he was when he went to the Labour membership and said, this is who I am and my values. Yeah, right. I would be also open to that.

Nish Kumar So you’d be in favor of Keir Starmer overthrowing himself? Effectively, like, essentially.

Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would forgive him. I would be like, look, you went for a phase. We all have our moments. And now you’ve returned back to who you are.

Nish Kumar You think Keir Starver is like Tyler Durden-ing himself? Maybe. This is a sort of Labour Party version of Fight Club.

Coco Khan So anyway, from one depressing story onto another, the BBC is under attack. Donald Trump is taking legal action, claiming that the broadcaster defrauded the public over editing of his infamous January 6th speech in a Panorama episode. His legal team have given the broadcasters until Friday to issue a full and fair retraction of the documentary alongside a hint of damages, all faced being sued for a whopping One billion dollars.

Nish Kumar It’s a head spinning set of developments that’s seen the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and head of news Deborah Ternes resign. And however you feel about the BBC and whatever its limitations are, it raises big questions about the future of public service broadcasting in the UK and globally. Just Google the words BBC and existential to see how serious this is. And it all comes from A story that broke a week ago in The Telegraph that cited a leaked memo alleging institutional bias by former independent adviser to the BBC’s editorial and standards board Michael Prescott. And this included the claim that Panorama had edited two sections of Trump’s speech on the Capitol Hill riots to make it seem that he was directly encouraging violence amongst his supporters.

Coco Khan So in this case, it was undoubtedly a failure in the BBC’s editorial process. The BBC’s chair, Zameer Shah, called the edit an error in judgment and apologized. But this is just one incorrectly edited clip. Why has it caused such hysteria? Well, the scale of the fallout is less about the original mistake and more about the political wrangling around it. According to The Guardian, Robbie Gibb, a senior BBC board member, had been instrumental in appointing Michael Prescott, whose leaked memo started the whole damn thing. And that Gibb had led the charge in applying pressure on the BBC board over its findings.

Nish Kumar So Gibb was Theresa May’s former communications chief and he actually helped launch GB News before he was appointed to the BBC’s board by Boris Johnson. He’s previously been accused of politicizing editorial appointments after he blocked a more left-leaning journalist from the board and more recently 400 media figures signed an open letter calling for a sacking over what they call his bias when it came to BBC reporting on Gaza.

Coco Khan This has led to accusations that while Gibb and Prescott say they are defending BBC impartiality, their version of impartial is overtly partisan and this is part of a coordinated, politically motivated attack on the broadcaster. BBC Chairman Samir Shah has dismissed suggestions that the BBC has fallen foul of a right-wing coup. He said it’s fanciful. But for many, the suspicion remains.

Nish Kumar And look, all of this has come at the worst possible time. So the BBC’s charter renewal is looming in 2027 and it’s leaderless at a time where it has to start deciding how it is funded and what its purpose should be. It’s also an enormous political headache for the government. Do you back your national broadcaster or your most powerful ally who has an absolute sexually charged love of two things, tariffs and… Suing media organizations. This is part of a kind of broad gaslighting project by the Trump administration, right? The reason that the insurrection happened on January the 6th is because Donald Trump openly disputed the results of a free and fair election with no factual basis. So we’re all now participating in this enormous global project. Denial of basic facts. Broadcasters will make errors all the time. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be held accountable for them, but this is the entry point for a larger conversation by people that want the BBC gotten rid of. And a lot of progressive people have lost faith in the BBC and lost faith in its ability to accurately reflect events, whether it’s in Gaza or whether it’s around transgender rights. What I would say is, yes, the BBC is an imperfect organization, but there are two really key principles here. We desperately desperately desperately require a media organization that is not owned by either Big Tech or a single multi-billionaire. The BBC is owned by us. If there are problems within that organization, we have the ability to hold it to account. We do not have that same ability to hold GB News to account, we do not the same ability hold The Daily Telegraph to account and we do have the If there are problems at the BBC, we can deal with them. We own the BBC. It works for us and it’s a news source that is trusted globally and by the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom. The second thing I would say is if you’re a progressive person, the BBC is a publicly owned utility and whatever your problems are with it, it seems fundamentally anathema to a progressive mindset that you would. Think that we don’t have to defend a publicly-owned asset, especially in the media landscape, the way the media is right now. This is a tipping point for the entire of the BBC. This is an existential crisis, and if people are not willing to defend it now, it will God.

[AD]

Coco Khan Now, it’s that time again. COP 30 marks a decade since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015 when the 1.5 Celsius global heating limit was first agreed. With the world now on the precipice of irreversible global heating, this year’s climate summit has been branded the last chance to secure humanity’s future. So no pressure then.

Nish Kumar Her talks are being held in the gateway to the Amazon in Belem in Brazil, so it’s no surprise that deforestation, which counts for about 11% of carbon emissions, is a defining issue. But things are off to a shaky start, with tens of thousands of acres of rainforest felled to make way for a four-lane road to the summit. I actually can’t believe that I’m having to say this out loud, but they felled tens of thousand of acres rainforest to make a road so that they could get to the summit. And many leaders from the world’s largest nations, India, Russia, the U.S. And China are also notably absent.

Coco Khan So here to tell us about the aims of COP30 and whether that 1.5 Celsius target can be rescued is Alex Reid. So she leads the deforestation nature and finance team at Global Witness, an investigative campaigning organization that challenges the power of climate wrecking companies. Alex, welcome to Pod Save the UK.

Alex Reid Thank you so much for having me.

Nish Kumar Alex, most of my life outside of this podcast is doing comedy about the news, and when I hear things like Dave cut down a load of trees to build a motorway to get to a climate conference, I feel redundant and frustrated. How do you, how does someone in your line of work feel when you hear stuff like that?

Alex Reid Yeah, I mean, you’ve got to stay optimistic, right? This is why we do the work. And we know that it’s a long journey to bring that temperature rise down to 1.5 C. I think it’s absolutely still alive. I mean it’s the first few days of cop. If anything, I actually think that road is a bit of a red herring. Like I know there was some strong BBC reporting about it. There was then quite a lot of digest from other climate groups saying, perhaps maybe you got this wrong. The road was always going to be built before the summit, but I think it does bring to life just like that tension around development and around how we’re going to square what we want to see in society with the transition to net zero. I mean, for me, we’re still in the very early days of COP, right? There’s long negotiations ahead. There’s going to a lot to follow. But I am so happy that it is taking place in Belem. I’m so happy it’s taking place on the Amazon. I went last year. It’s a beautiful place. It’s like buzzing with culture and diversity and mobilizations and art. And it’s one of those summits which isn’t taking place in a resort. Like I want the negotiators to get out there and sweat it out in the heat and to know what it’s like for the rest of the world when temperatures rise. Every year we at Global Witness, we track. The number of fossil fuel lobbyists who attend the COP. And last year it was absolutely shocking. There were 70% more lobbyists connected to the fossil fuel industry than there were the total number of the delegations from the 10 most climate vulnerable countries. So it’s just like absolutely crazy that, you know, the COP has been co-opted in this way.

Coco Khan Right. You’ve hit the nail on the head. That’s why whenever I hear about COF, whatever number it might be, I have this feeling that this is just going to be essentially a big business pursuit, or there’ll be some greenwashing exercise. I get the sense from you though you feel much more positive about it.

Alex Reid It. Why? I feel positive about it because if we didn’t have COP already we’d have to invent it. Like the moment that we got rid of it we’d be like oh my gosh we need to bring all these countries back together again because no single country can crack this alone. I mean COP stands for conference of the parties and we often like make jokes you know that it’s fossil fuel lobbyists standing around with their champagne and their canapes like trying to strike the next oil deal. Like the past two have been really problematic held in UAE and then Azerbaijan. We did a big undercover investigation last year that showed that the executive of the Azerbaijan COP was actually up for making oil and gas deals. And so we kind of caught him in a bit of a sting. And we thought that they’d learned quite a lot probably from the UAE presidency who struck a bunch of oil and gasoline after the COP. So that’s one clear thing that really does have to change for us to remain like optimistic and engaged with the process. So we’re absolutely chuffed to have pushed through a really key reform at the COP, which is basically that now when you’re registering, you need to say who’s funding your trip and you need say that you’re there to lobby and to participate in the spirit of achieving that 1.5 C goal. And that’s absolutely essential. If not, get out of the COP please. And actually in the first week. President Lula in Brazil, he really scored a big goal. It’s his legacy initiative. He’s just launched the Tropical Forest Forever facility, which basically is a huge fund, high ambition that’s gonna aim to put more money into conservation of tropical forest.

Nish Kumar This is a really big and interesting deal, right? So it’s snappily named the Tropical Forest Forever Facility or to, and it’s kind of the centerpiece of the summit. It’s a multi-billion dollar initiative to protect tropical forests. How does it actually work?

Alex Reid Yeah, I mean it’s a complicated one. I think the first thing to say is that it’s really exciting that it is an idea to help end deforestation that is coming out of a tropical forest country like Brazil. Like, you know, the previous 29 co-ops were majority decided by global north powers. They set the terms, should we give you this money? I don’t know, like on what terms. It’s really important that Brazil is hosting this co-op and that they’ve come up with this idea. So that’s great. Without getting really wonky about it, because at the end of the day, it is a fun. Um…

Nish Kumar You’re doing a really good job of being really excited and energized about what is a financial fund. It is a Financial Fund.

Alex Reid Financial fund. Yeah, and I’m not going to make you read the documents. It’s the good news. I’ve read them for you. So, basically, Brazil want to grow this thing into 125 billion, basically, to serve as like a pension for rainforests is a helpful way to think about it. So they want to get governments, philanthropists, the private sector to pull their money together into one big pot and then invest that in global markets, generate a profit and give. Most of that profit back to rainforest countries based on the amount of forests that they have standing. If they get it right, what’s exciting is that this actually isn’t climate aid, as we know it, it’s an investment. So in theory, say if the UK or the US or whoever in the future is to invest, That money isn’t going to be replenishing if the markets play right. And that’s obviously something that we might not have confidence in. But in theory, they’d be making a small return and at least their capital should be safe, a bit like a pension. But the initial investments that a fund makes, what if they’re not eco? Yeah, this was a big concern for us. So we were… Absolutely over the moon that they have ruled out investing in oil and gas and they have ruled out invest in deforesting assets because it’s very clear like you can’t put money into fossil fuels and use that to pay trees. But that is kind of what the financial system is based on at the moment and that’s what makes me nervous about this kind of privatization and financialization of climate age.

Nish Kumar We start from a place where they’re ruling out investing in fossil fuels. That’s a good thing. That’s good red line. But what are the tensions that remain between those two pots of money?

Alex Reid I mean, what makes the fund exciting and the reason why governments want to buy in is because right now we don’t have a persuasive answer to how to keep forests standing. They are being chopped down at a rate of about 18 football pitches a second last year. But the tension and what makes it less exciting for me is this lingering feeling, niggling at me, the financial sector have found a whole new way to make money from climate chaos. So a month before the COP, Global Witness did massive financial analysis looking at 50 companies that had been accused of deforestation. So someone had written about them, they put their findings to the company and they weren’t persuaded, right? That this company hadn’t conducted deforestation, hadn’t been linked to land rights abuses often, you know, stealing land from indigenous peoples. There’s a real connection here in the deforestaion economy. And we found that globally banks had made $26 billion. From deals with just those 50 companies. And obviously the TFFF is extremely important, right? But unless you regulate at the same time to say, and you can’t invest in deforesting companies, are we in this weird situation where potentially you’ve got like government funding, ensuring private funding to kind of play the market and the banks are making profit from both ends? So, you know. No one’s got the cash right now to make a big contribution, but there are things that we can do. We can change our financial system by saying, you can’t invest in those companies anymore. And it’s pretty simple, to be honest.

Nish Kumar But regulating the financial sector has been the sort of white whale. I think we were sort of hoping that we’d see a Labour government that was more interventionist in that area, but it’s something that Rachel Reeves seems reluctant to do because it seems to be sort of at odds with the growth agenda. I mean, bringing it back to the UK, historically we’ve sort of played a big role in stopping deforestation. So we brokered a commitment to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 at COP26. The government has also contributed to the structure that’s underpinning the TFFF. But then on the eve of COP 30, they announced it will not contribute financially to the fund. Why is that?

Alex Reid Yeah. I mean, this is the low point, I’d say. Like, we were really in the 10 and we were really driving the TFFF conversation from the chats that I get to have with civil servants. Yeah. I mean the first thing to say is it is good that Keir Starmer showed up in Brazil. There were questions about that and I’m glad that he went there and he was really unequivocal in his speech. He was like, we are all in on climate change. Like we know why this is So that was a great gauntlet to throw down. But the reality is that it is a bit of a kick in the face to Brazil that they didn’t contribute to TFFF. And the big elephant in the room is obviously the budget, right, at the end of this month, and how this is going to play with people. We actually did some polling that was done by More In Common, and there was, you know, two thirds of the British public want the UK to meet its commitment to end deforestation by 2030, including reform voters. So, you know, I think that the question is, like, who is trying to break down that consensus about nature, who was trying to breakdown that consensus about climate change, and why? And like, Who are their polluter paymasters? Like, why do they want to import this kind of like culture war that actually doesn’t exist here yet from the US.

Nish Kumar Is that what you think is going on with Tyson Farage, because if we’re saying that there’s even a support base for climate policies in the reform camp, is it simply just the sums of money that we are aware of that are going into reform from the oil and gas industry?

Alex Reid I mean, we’ve got to get fossil fuels out of our politics, like that’s absolutely essential. I mean just like the COP, we shouldn’t have fossil fuel majors making decisions about future policy in their energy system. It just doesn’t make any sense. Like even at the moment, you know, in the lead up to the budget, we have been scrutinizing this deal. A lot of the work that we do is this kind of like deep finance work and then trying to communicate it to the public, which shows that Shell and Equinor, which is this big Norway oil major. Trying to do this deal that basically would enable them to write off more than a billion in tax. And we’re sending letters to Reeves saying, here’s your billion. Like they’re trying to get away with basically not paying into the system. So, you know, you asked like, what should UK government be doing? I mean, one thing is to get fossil fuels out of politics and to speed up that phase out of fossil fuels. Like that’s absolutely essential, but it’s not just about. The money. Like we can’t afford to be misled to think that there’s this binary, that it’s affordable housing, better jobs, cheaper food, or net zero and green. Like that just isn’t the case.

Nish Kumar That is the way the conversation has been steered, right? And Farage is definitely a huge part of that. It’s been steared into a binary between net zero and affordability for British people. We should just always make clear whenever we have this conversation, according to an analysis of reforms donations by the New York Times in 2024, the party raised £4.75 million. 40% of which came from people who have openly questioned climate change or have investments in fossil fuels or other climate polluting industries. They are not acting in the best interests of this country, they are essentially acting in the interest of their sponsors.

Coco Khan And as Nigel Farage’s output on Cameo will tell us, he will say anything for money. Just before we let you go, Alex, I just wanted to ask, you know, at the beginning of this, we talked about how this cop was meant to be the last chance. Do you think that target, that 1.5C target, is it possible we can, we can

Alex Reid limit it? We absolutely are able to do this. When we have this academic conversation about is 1.5c alive, we have to remember what happens with every single fraction of climate change. You’ve just seen the hurricane in Jamaica. Look at the devastation. Remember those floods in Pakistan. That’s going to grow even more regular if we don’t try every single lever that’s available to us. I mean the irony about this whole thing is that actually the technology that we need in terms of renewable energy has never been so available, you know, so affordable, so effective. So actually the solutions that we needs are largely on the table. The problem is, and this is like the cop for implementation, the cop of indigenous peoples, the cop truth is what they’re saying. The reality is that states were supposed to show up with plans that showed how we were gonna meet 1.5C and they haven’t. And so this really is about political will. And this is where it kind of comes back to that point about inequality. The people who want you to believe that 1.5C is dead are the polluters. They are the 1% who believe that no matter how much the climate changes, they will just buy their way out of the problem. Like that’s why they’re happy with the system. They want it to go on that way. What we need to work out now is if we’re gonna overshoot that target. What are the consequences going to be and then how do we come back absolutely as rapidly as possible with like every tool in the belt to stop that.

Nish Kumar Alex Reid, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.

Alex Reid My pleasure.

Coco Khan After the break, I sit down with the AI and online safety minister Kanishka Narayan to discuss the government’s new measures to crack down on AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

[AD]

Coco Khan Now with the floodgates of AI generated content wide open, new avenues for harmful material have emerged. So this week, the government is introducing new laws to prevent AI generated images of child sexual abuse material. Joining us now to discuss how the government intends to crack down on this material is Kanishka Narayan, the Minister for AI and online safety. Welcome to  Pod Save the UK, Kanishika.

Kanishka Narayan Coco, it’s great to be here.

Coco Khan Great. Well, look, you know, always good to see legislation moving fast, particularly because tech moves faster. In the last year, we’ve seen OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Vio emerge into the market. These are AI video generating tools. I mean, you know, I’m sure we’ve see the Queen rapping. It’s delightful, isn’t it? But perhaps unsurprisingly, we have also seen these tools used for very, very malicious and various purposes. So there’s been an increase in child sexual abuse material, which according to the internet watch foundation has more than doubled. So just tell me what are these laws going to do about it?

Kanishka Narayan Koko, I think you’ve absolutely hit spot on, which is that as we’ve seen AI usage rise, we have seen some of it being used for abuse. Today, or the laws that we’ve passed now mean that targeted experts have the power to spot the abuse and to stamp it out before it gets out into the wild. They are now legally able to use appropriate material in a targeted way to spot child abuse in AI models before those AI models are to carry out a piece.

Coco Khan So it’s not that new content has been made illegal. This sort of material has always been illegal. Rather, it’s that you’re allowing AI platforms to check for it better. Is that right?

Kanishka Narayan We’re allowing a set of targeted experts to be able to check for it better. So as you say, the content is already completely illegal, has very robust enforcement against it, where it involves child abuse. That is fundamentally the priority for us to stamp out. What the law now does, in light of the changes we’ve made, is it arms those, the police, a trusted set of experts to be to be spot it and make sure they’re enforcing it even better.

Coco Khan Ah, but not the platform. So I think this is the contentious bit, right? So the AI platform still really have no responsibility around this.

Kanishka Narayan The AI platforms have a legal liability around this. And so if you are a social media platform, if you’re an AI chat bot where users share data with each other, if you were an AI chat bot, where users draw on search, which uses live website search as well, there is a legal liability on you to make sure children do not see harmful material. And so let me be very clear about this. The platforms have an extreme and clear sense of liability under the legislation already, where we’re going further. In light of the new changes is we’re arming our police, our trusted experts to crack down on them even bigger.

Coco Khan Just while we’re talking about some of the government’s work around dangerous material online, I did want to talk to you about the news that the government is tightening up laws around the imagery of strangulation in pornography. The reason I wanted to ask you about this is I did a story on this years ago now, right? At the time, I was in my late 20s, early 30s, a lot of my friends were dating and it was just a thing that was coming up on WhatsApps. This guy I met choked me. I didn’t ask first. And there’s like a variety of… Responses that just my friends would give at the time, you know, I didn’t feel comfortable, I was a bit scary. Oh, it’s fine, they like it. Oh I actually do die like blah blah blah. And it just made me think, oh, this is so strange. This has come out of nowhere and now all of a sudden it’s everywhere. Started looking into it and of course I teamed up with another reporter who was also looking into how the rough sex defense was being used a lot in terms of defending perpetrators who had ultimately taken the lives of their partners. And I found myself in these lengthy conversations about whether it was the government’s place to do something about this. Now the government has decided that it is. So I guess my first question is, do you think this is going to be controversial? And my second question is how can you even enforce it?

Kanishka Narayan Yeah, well Coco, I think tribute to everyone including you and others who have shown a light on this over the years. I think where we have now reached is that there is a very clear evidence base. 38% of women say that they have experienced choking during sex and we’re finding that women who experience non-fatal strangulation are seven times more likely to then experience fatal strangulation. Let me just pause on that because that a really critical bit of evidence. What we’re finding now is this isn’t just a kind of innocent, consensual thing between two adults. We’re finding in many cases that this is the precursor to something vastly more sinister down the line. And that is the reason why we’re making sure that it is now amongst the most serious offenses when it comes to online content and the extremist forms of pornography depiction as well. And so that is really important. In terms of enforceability, like the Online Safety Act is focused on platforms. We wanna make sure that those who are generating profits from sharing this sort of content are the ones who are held liable. And they feel the full force of enforcement as well.

Coco Khan I just want to stick with you on this strangulation thing just because it has been lingering in my mind for so many years and I’m quite surprised to see a government talk about this to be completely transparent. I feel like it’s been a question that’s been swerved for a while. And when I talk to some of my friends again about this issue, we often talk about how these depictions, how much power do they have really and I always use the same kind of comparison, which is that. If you’re driving a car and you decide to have sex while you’re driving it, because you’ve driven a car, and you’ve been in a car before, you would know that that’s probably not very safe. But most of us haven’t experienced strangulation. So if you’re just being shown all the time that it doesn’t hurt and it’s not harmful, then of course, you have a strange idea about it. But then we come back to this thing about is it the government’s place to tell people? How they can express their desires. Is it the government’s place to know about that? Is it government’s placed to be enforcing it with age verification, for example? This data will be held. People will know what people get off on. How do you feel about that, is there not a, what’s the phrase I’m looking for? Isn’t this not a bit of a poison chalice?

Kanishka Narayan So let me be very clear on the scope of what we’re doing. What we’re not doing is telling people what to do in their bedrooms, right? This has nothing to do with government showing up at your house and telling you what to, you should do whatever you want within the realm of the existing law that that is not anything to do us. The second thing we’re no doing is we’re not saying that you shouldn’t privately communicate with each other if you’re in a consensual relationship in whatever form you want. The specific thing that we’re doing is on platforms where users share content with each other in a public way. We are making sure that those bits of content, which exactly as you say, they shape our sense of what is normal, they should shape our sense of what it’s safe. And ultimately in cases they are viewed by children, we are make sure that on those platforms, on public expressions, that the most extreme forms of violence and pornography are now no longer allowed. And that is a thing that I think I find across the constituency that I represent in Wales, but even indeed across the country. When I say to people, we’re stopping young kids from being able to see extreme forms of porn online, people say. Yeah, that’s exactly right. When I say that we are stopping the most extreme forms of pornography where there is evidence of subsequent escalation to fatality, people say, well, that is exactly right, what this is not about is interfering in people’s private lives.

Coco Khan On this show, we looked at how easy is it to beat the age checks? It’s really easy. Really, really, really easy and there’s a question there because fundamentally, people will hold the government responsible for the harms they experience online. As much as we know that it’s platforms, we will blame the government for not standing up to them. And of course, the government’s in a very weird position with the tech giants at the moment. We kind of need to work with them. There’s a lot of productivity targets, but at the same time, this thing is is happening. Do you feel that this is the right tool for the job?

Kanishka Narayan I think there’s been a lot of conversation around age assurance. The finding is very clear. As a consequence of age assurance checks, we are finding that the traffic on some of the most challenging websites has materially reduced. And people say it’s very easy to get around on VPNs. We found that, actually, after an initial spike, there has been a leveling off in the use of VPNs as well. So we will get more data in time, but I’m feeling confident that those measures have been very effective in the starting place that they’re in. But of course, it’s not a sort of once and done thing, right? The online environment is changing radically. People are accessing tons more information all the time. It is quite rightly the government’s responsibility. And the thing I would do in my job is to assure you and assure everyone listening in that the search children’s safety is the top priority for me in this job. And we are doing everything we can to make sure that we’re keeping up not just with technology, but staying ahead of it, which is exactly what the changes that we brought in that I mentioned at the top of the conversation are about.

Coco Khan You know, that phrase like you have to break an egg to make some omelets. What eggs are acceptable and what eggs aren’t, right? So we have a, uh, a very vocal listenership. They’ve talked to us all the time. Actually, I’m just going to read you, um, a message that we received from Jack who has concerns for the trans community. So they say the OSA risks closing down access to safe health information and spaces for trans non-binary and other LGBTQ folks, the definition of potentially harmful material. Is so vague that huge swathes of well-curated information and well-moderated spaces risk being closed off. Our listener, Jason, also wrote in to acknowledge a similar restrictions. You know, there will be people saying, of course, child safety is the most important thing. I mean, we would all agree that, but other communities will be caught up in this. Is that acceptable to the Labour Party?

Kanishka Narayan Well look, I think if there are specific instances people want to bring up, I’m always very keen on engaging deeply on those specifics. But the big picture is very clear. The duties that have come into play so far are focused on just two areas. Content that is already illegal and content that harms children’s safety. I would struggle to imagine many forms of content, especially potentially harmful bits of content that fall into that scope. As a future world in which we are introducing some changes focused on. Legal but harmful content, not to outlaw it, but to empower users in those cases. And so the thing I’d say to your listeners is if they think there are bits of content that are helpful for them in particular, that are not illegal, that don’t critically threaten children’s safety, I’d be very keen on making sure that they are not just permitted and where we’re going, but supported, because it’s clearly a very important area.

Coco Khan So am I right in thinking you’re saying essentially that there may be some teething issues, but they will be corrected over time.

Kanishka Narayan Yeah, I think at the moment the scope is very clear. Stuff that is currently deeply illegal or threatens children’s safety is the only content that is caught up in the duties implemented. And I would be very surprised if important bits of health information are caught up on that.

Coco Khan Obviously, it’s not my job to feel sorry for the Labour Party, that’s not my job, of course, but I do think this is quite a difficult position for the Labour Party to be in because there is this reputation that Keir Starmer has of being two-tier Keir, of being quick to ban, of being anti-free speech, anti- free expressions. And this is being wrapped up into that. I just wanted to ask, you know, How concerned is the party about this reputation? Or is it a case of, well, when everyone sees how much better we’ve made the internet, then you’ll see that this was right.

Kanishka Narayan I think this conversation, unfortunately, in the kind of Westminster bubble is played out in a very unhelpful way because when I speak to parents, they say, we want the government to go further. We want to make sure that our children don’t carry extreme porn in their pockets on their phones. That’s what we’re doing. And other parties, the reform party is opposing that. They want children to go around carrying that kind of extreme content. And so do I want to take that fight on and represent the Labour Party’s views 100%? Because I think that is exactly what the public deserve and what they expect us.

Coco Khan Sorry, when you were talking that, I just had this really strange image in my head being like, imagine if at the next hustings, all the parties had to provide their view on what sex should be like. I just have this weird moment being like will they act it out? I don’t know if I need this.

Kanishka Narayan Let me just be very, very clear. I have no position to tell people their views on that question. What we’re doing specifically is where content is illegal. Where it is deeply harmful for children’s safety. That’s where we’re focused on. We’re not in the business of telling people what to do in their private lives.

Coco Khan Let’s talk about the international impact. The internet is of course, a global affair and it’s not just people in the UK that have raised concerns. So a couple of weeks ago, we had the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales on this show. He was talking about it. Wikipedia has challenged the act, but had its case thrown out as Ofcom that they, they haven’t targeted the organization. So it’s really a case for them to make at the moment. I do want to play you a clip though, cause I think that represents his argument best.

Clip This idea of blocking people and not seeing their content anymore applies to social media. Like if I block you, I’m not going to see your posts anymore. Okay, that’s simple, right? But we’re working together colLabouratively editing. And then the idea that we need to identify volunteers, which could be, for example, for age-gating purposes, that super dangerous. Like one of the things that’s really important to us is that a lot of people who are editing Wikipedia in places like Russia, Saudi Arabia, places where you can get in real trouble for speaking some fairly simple truths, anonymous editing is quite important.

Coco Khan So look, we don’t want to see a world where Wikipedia is forced to exit the UK. I mean, what would you say to these concerns of international organizations?

Kanishka Narayan Look, I think the thing I’d say to them is free speech is legally protected under the Online Safety Act. And so the thing that I strongly encourage everyone to do is to look at the specifics. There is no interest in this government stopping people from engaging freely online. In fact, we want to support it. We have put it on a legal footing. We want to make sure that free exchange of information. I use Wikipedia very regularly. I want to be sure that it stays in the UK and is robustly used across the UK. But at the same time I think it’s right for us where there is a very clear course of either harm directly to children or illegality, that we look at that. And in the course of Wikipedia’s particular case, I think that some of the content they’re talking about is future legislation or regulation that might be considered rather than present codes that have been implemented. We’re of course going to continue to review that and make sure that we’re supporting services that are important to the public in Britain.

Coco Khan You back off quite a lot then, I’m guessing. You feel that it’s quite a big substantial job, isn’t it?

Kanishka Narayan It’s a huge job. It’s a huge job. The internet is a massive waterfront for any regulator to be engaging with, right? And it took eight years to get this legislation right and to get it across parliament. And so of course, Ofcom has a big job on their hands and it’s not a context where I’m sort of blindingly backing them all the way. I had a very robust conversation with them just yesterday. I want to make sure that they’re going further, they’re getting faster when they need to enforce and in other areas where they’re doing it well, I want to make sure that we’re backing our public servants. Rather than just talking them down at every turn. But it’s a balanced conversation and I feel we’re in constant review.

Coco Khan So there’s one popular website that has simply refused to comply. And that is, oh, 4chan, sorry, I hate mentioning 4chan. It’s not my favorite thing to do. Look, if you know it, it’s got a lot of bad stuff on there. Racism, homophobia, transphobia. There’s a, it is basically a checklist of all the things that the Online Safety Act is trying to limit. Ofcom has issued fines, but the website has refused to pay. I mean, what, what can we do about this?

Kanishka Narayan There are road criminals all over the country and beyond and when that happens, we want to make sure that as a government, we have the right law to go after them. We arm the regulator with the enforcement powers to go to them and we’re doing everything in our power where we’re finding people breaking the law and then running away from it. We’re going to chase them down and make sure they pay for it. So that’s the case with 4chan and I’m backing Ofcom all the way to be able to enforce its fines.

Coco Khan Quite tricky though, isn’t it? Because 4chan will say, well, actually under the first amendment, and they’re a US company, they operate under their own laws. How can Ofcom enforce the law against the company that well, A doesn’t care, but it’s also into other jurisdictions. I think there’s also concerns when we’re talking about American companies and the administration that is in place in the States at the moment. JD Vance has been calling out the UK saying that we have a problem with free speech. This seems like a big problem for Labour, like, are we going to see, I mean, the phrase I’m really going to say, are Labour going to go hard on this? Is this a battle that they’re really taking on?

Kanishka Narayan Yeah, I think there are two things I’d say to this, Cocoa. One, free speech is a deep part of our heritage here, and we’re doing everything to support it and enhance it. But the second thing is very clear as well. If you’re operating in Britain, you’re operating by British law. And if you’re breaking that law, we’re going to come to you wherever you are.

Coco Khan Now, before we let you go, we just need to get your reaction to this clip. I imagine you’ve already seen it, but it’s from Robert Jenrick. He essentially has created an AI video of David Lammy. It was followed on from the Deputy Prime Minister subbing in during PMQs. I’m sorry I have to play it to you, but here it is. OK, so for listeners to the podcast who aren’t seeing this, lucky you. It’s an image of David Lammer, he goes up to stand at the speaker’s box. And then all of a sudden he pulls on a clown costume, a red nose, a floppy hat, a rough and everything. I just wanna say, I can’t prove that that’s racist, but it feels really racist to me. There’s something about that that feels maybe hinting at minstrels. I feel very uncomfortable with it, but don’t worry. I’m not gonna ask you to comment on that. What I want to ask you about is political figures generating AI content. We’re seeing quite a lot of it. Certainly from across over in the States. How ready are we for this? What’s going on amongst politicians in terms of what they are doing?

Kanishka Narayan Look, I think the thing I’d say about the particular clip is, to me, it’s another sign of people in the Tory party trying to somehow desperately seek attention on the precipice of extinction. And Robert Jenrick, I thinks, should be apologizing for the state of our prisons and the state our public services that he and others left this country in. But the broader picture question that you ask is really important. One, I think we have a responsibility as politicians to uphold the integrity and quality of the debate that I think the public demands and expects of us. But two, the thing I’d say to your listeners and to the broader British public is very clear. In the modern world of social media information, it’s on all of us that we are able to hold up good quality information, but that when we see the sort of behavior that you’ve just shown in that clip, that we’re able to call people out and say this is not what is in line with British values.

Coco Khan Kanishka Narayan, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.

Kanishka Narayan Thanks. Great to be here.

Nish Kumar So we’ve actually had a delivery come to us from Amazon Music. We’ve been made into Funko Pops.

Coco Khan Oh no. Oh no! Okay, first of all, this doll is identical except they put a beard on yours.

Nish Kumar No, no, the dolls are very different.

Coco Khan This is racism.

Nish Kumar Look, my one’s got much curlier hair. Coco’s already pulled the legs off her Funko-pop. Completely pulled the whole thing apart.

Coco Khan This one’s for the therapist I think

Nish Kumar I am given to understand these are not commercially available.

Coco Khan No, they’re not. I think it’s so that we can remind the listeners that our podcast is available on Thursdays on Amazon or wherever you get your podcasts.

Nish Kumar And Funko Pops are available wherever you get your Funko pops. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and Blue Sky. Pod Save The UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

Coco Khan Thanks to producers James Tinesdale and May Robson.

Nish Kumar And the music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

Coco Khan The executive producers are Will Yates and Katie Long with additional support from Ari Schwartz.

Nish Kumar And if you want to send us in toys, do it.